Prof*   A.?.   Lange 


Edtication  Dept* 


EDITED  BY  HENRY  SUZZALLO 

PROFESSOR   OF  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   EDUCATION 
TEACHERS   COLLEGE,   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 
IN  AND  OUT  OF  SCHOOL 

BY 

WILLIAM   DeWITT   HYDE 

PRESIDENT  OF  BOWDOIN   COLLEGE 


HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

BOSTON,  NEW  YORK  AND   CHICAGO 


LB  /633 

EDUC. 


COPYRIGHT,  191O,  BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


CLC. 


PREFACE 

In  state  and  church,  in  family  and  school,  all  of 
us  who  are  not  anarchists  agree  that  we  must 
have  authority.  As  soon,  however,  as  we  ask, 
"Where  is  its  seat?"  "In  what  spirit  shall  it  be 
exercised?"  the  world  splits  into  opposing  camps. 
The  monarchists,  the  ecclesiastics,  the  tradition- 
alists, the  conservatives,  tell  us  that  authority 
resides  in  official  individuals,  whose  will  must  be 
imposed  upon  the  masses  by  pains  and  penalties. 
Democratic  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  af- 
firms that  authority,  potential  or  actual,  resides  in 
all  individuals  whose  interests  are  involved ;  and 
that  the  ruler,  the  minister,  the  husband  and  father, 
the  teacher  are  simply  persons  whose  authority 
is  based  on  their  power  to  serve  more  intelligently 
and  effectively  the  interests  and  aims,  latent  or 
expressed,  in  the  minds  and  wills  of  all  concerned. 
In  the  state,  here  in  America  at  least,  democ- 
racy has  won ;  in  the  church  it  is  winning ;  in  the 
family  it  is  meeting  the  reverses  that  forces  fight- 
ing in  a  strange  and  open  field  against  strong 
iii 


sr^7Nf^.q 


PREFACE 

intrenchments  must  expect;  in  the  school  the 
skirmishing  has  scarcely  begun.  Yet  the  school 
is  the  point  where  the  fight  is  sure  to  be  fiercest. 
For  in  the  school  we  have  one,  or  at  most  a 
very  few,  mature,  trained,  experienced  individ- 
uals on  the  one  side,  and  a  mass  of  the  immature, 
the  untrained,  and  the  inexperienced  on  the 
other.  Here,  if  anywhere  on  earth,  is  the  place 
for  official  conservatism  to  dig  its  last  ditch,  and 
fight  to  the  bitter  end. 

Yet  even  here  democratic  Christianity  has  the 
right  upon  its  side,  and  soon  or  late  will  win.  In- 
deed, unless  the  school  is  to  be  out  of  the  trend 
of  modern  civilization  ;  unless  the  teacher  is  to 
be  the  last  surviving  relic  of  an  outgrown  social 
organization,  he  too,  like  the  ruler,  the  minister, 
the  husband  and  father,  must  come  down  from 
his  throne  of  officialism,  and  prove  his  right  to 
rule  by  sympathetic  and  effective  service  of  the 
common  interests  and  needs. 

In  the  university  this  is  the  obvious  thing  to 

do,  and  already  is  the  universal  practice.  In  the 

college  it  is  comparatively  easy,  though  involving 

risks  from  which  the  timid  shrink.  In  the  high 

iv 


PREFACE 

school  it  is  harder,  though,  with  the  aid  of  voca- 
tional interests,  by  no  means  difficult.  In  the 
grammar  school  it  is  extremely  difficult,  requir- 
ing enormous  ingenuity  to  devise  methods  of 
making  hard  work  and  right  conduct  automati- 
cally preferable  through  artificial  weighting  of 
alternatives.  In  the  primary  school  the  problem 
is  supremely  arduous,  requiring,  in  addition  to  all 
that  is  valuable  in  what  the  kindergarten  has 
taught  us,  infinite  tact  and  resourcefulness  on 
the  part  of  the  teacher. 

Nevertheless,  radical  and  revolutionary  as 
these  apparently  meek  and  mild  ideals  are,  and 
difficult  and  even  dangerous  as  is  their  applica- 
tion, the  first  part  of  this  book  ventures  to  state 
them  in  uncompromising  terms.  One  thing  is 
sure.  As  Plato  said  about  his  ideal  republic : 
"  Not  until  philosophers  are  kings  or  the  kings 
and  princes  of  this  world  have  the  spirit  and 
power  of  philosophy,  will  this  our  state  have  a 
possibility  of  life  and  behold  the  light  of  day  *' ; 
so  we  may  be  sure  that  not  until  our  teachers  are 
philosophers,  and  bring  the  fruits  of  a  wise  phi- 
losophy to  their  task,  can  schools  be  conducted 

V 


PREFACE 

on  these  principles.  Accordingly  the  second  part 
aims  to  give  the  teacher  such  a  sound  and  sane 
philosophy  of  life  and  work. 

Good  teaching,  on  its  personal  side,  is  simply 
democracy,  Christianity,  good-will,  incarnate  in 
the  teacher,  and  diffused  like  an  atmosphere 
throughout  the  school.  How  to  put  that  into  the 
school  is  told  in  the  first  part ;  how  the  teacher 
is  to  get  it  into  himself  or  herself  is  told  in  the 
second  part.  The  order  of  development  in  the 
first  part  was  suggested  by  Professor  Ralph 
Barton  Perry's  **  Moral  Economy,"  published  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons ;  the  second  part  is  a 
condensation  and  application  to  the  problems  of 
the  teacher  of  my  "  From  Epicurus  to  Christ,'* 
published  by  The  Macmillan  Company.  The  first 
part  shows  the  teacher  how  to  humble  himself  and 
become  the  sympathetic  servant  of  his  pupils  ;  the 
second  part  shows  him  how  to  exalt  himself  and 
become  the  rightful  master  of  their  free  obedi- 
ence. 

William  DeWitt  Hyde. 

BowDOiN  College,  Brunswick,  Maine, 
March  15,  1910. 


CONTENTS 

Preface iii 

Editor's  Introduction ix 

PART  I.   THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

IN  SCHOOL 

The  Personality  of  the  Pupil i 

The  Primary  School:  Suggested  Immediate 
Interests 4 

The  Grammar  School  :  Artificially  Weighted 
Interests 13 

The  High  School:  Elected  Individual  In- 
terests   20 

The  College  :  Social  Interests 25 

The  University:  Professional  Interests    .    37 

Five  Tests  of  the  Teacher 43 

PART  IL   THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 
OUT  OF  SCHOOL 

The  Personality  of  the  Teacher  ....    49 

The  Epicurean  :  Happiness .    54 

vii 


CONTENTS 

The  Stoic  :  Fortitude 60 

The  Platonic:  Serenity 65 

The  Aristotelian:  Proportion 72 

The  Christian:  Devotion 77 

Five  Principles  of  Personality 81 

Outline 85 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

There  was  a  time  when  the  teacher,  relatively 
speaking,  was  a  more  important  factor  in  our 
educational  consciousness.  He  was  almost  the 
only  factor  about  which  people  disturbed  them- 
selves. At  least,  we  hear  little  in  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  century  America  of  the  problems 
of  the  course  of  study,  the  nature  of  the  child, 
and  the  need  of  social  adjustment  on  the  part 
of  the  school.  The  one  fact  stressed  in  the  organ- 
ization of  a  school  was  the  teacher's  qualities. 
The  measure  of  the  teacher  was  the  measure  of 
the  school.  In  so  far  as  he  was  learned,  the  cur- 
riculum was  adequate ;  in  so  far  as  he  possessed 
a  genial,  resourceful  personality,  his  methods 
were  well  adapted  to  the  child ;  in  so  far  as  he 
was  the  embodiment  of  valid  ethical  standards, 
the  school  served  the  right  social  and  moral  ends. 
Society  and  child,  course  of  study  and  teacher, 
were  not  regarded  as  separate  factors,  not  even 
for  the  convenience  of  thinking.  The  public  and 
ix 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

professional  mind  saw  the  whole  of  the  school 
situation  in  the  personality  that  was  made  mas- 
ter of  the  school. 

Since  then,  education  has  become  vastly  more 
self-conscious.  Its  consciousness  has  become  sci- 
entific ;  and  one  by  one  the  factors  in  the  school 
situation  have  been  raised  to  the  level  of  gen- 
eral law  and  guiding  principle.  Soon  it  was  not 
enough  that  the  teacher's  personality  should  be 
orthodox  in  religion,  politics,  and  morals;  he 
must  have  a  scholarly  command  of  the  specific 
subjects  he  was  to  teach,  and  by  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century  the  movement  for  a 
larger  scholarly  or  cultural  attainment  among 
teachers  was  in  full  swing.  Later,  another  em- 
phasis and  another  movement  directed  attention 
to  the  need  for  a  better  understanding  of  the 
child  as  a  condition  of  the  educative  process, 
and  the  close  of  the  century  saw  "  child  study'' 
and  "educational  psychology"  occupying  an  im- 
portant position  in  the  professional  training  of 
teachers.  And  now  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century,  the  fullness  of  our  political 
and  social  introspectiveness  forces  its  way  into 

X 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

the  thinking  of  the  schoolmaster,  and  school 
education  begins  to  be  determined  on  the  basis 
of  investigated  social  fact. 

Each  new  emphasis  has  been  a  clear  gain. 
But  each  new  movement  has  complicated  educa- 
tional theory  and  stratified  it.  The  result  is  that 
we  have  fallen  into  the  way  of  thinking  of  teach- 
ing as  so  much  applied  course  of  study,  or  so 
much  applied  psychology,  sociology,  or  ethics. 
We  scarcely  see  teaching  in  terms  of  its  own 
characteristic  points  of  view  or  modes  of  action. 
Furthermore,  the  concentration  of  the  profes- 
sional mind  upon  new  factors  has  tended  toward 
a  subordination,  if  not  an  utter  forgetfulness,  of 
elements  once  clearly  recognized.  In  the  empha- 
sis of  child,  society,  and  course  of  study,  the 
teacher  has  been  forgotten. 

It  is  odd  that  in  our  effort  to  know  more  fully 
the  nature  of  the  elements  in  the  educative  pro- 
cess, we  should  have  become  less  considerate  of 
the  personal  human  instrument  through  which 
the  teaching  is  to  be  done.  The  personality  of  the 
teacher  is  as  much  a  conditioning  force  as  the 
mental  make-up  of  the  child,  the  nature  of 
xi 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

the  school  subjects,  and  the  conditions  and  needs 
of  modern  life.  It  is  more  than  a  mere  condition 
of  school  life  :  it  is  its  active  force,  —  stimulat- 
ing, guiding,  encouraging,  and  applauding  all  the 
activities  of  childhood.  Surely  the  human  factor 
is  worthy  of  some  consideration,  not  upon  human 
grounds  alone,  but  for  the  purpose  of  efficiency. 
Yet,  too  often  we  hear  of  large,  highly  organized 
school  systems  where  everything  is  prescribed 
by  authority  from  above,  subject  matter  and 
teaching  method  alike,  without  regard  for  the 
teacher's  genius  and  limitation,  the  local  situa- 
tion, or  the  shift  of  child  interests.  Is  it  to  be 
wondered  at  that  teachers  feel  that  their  indi- 
viduality is  gone,  that  they  have  become  mere 
tools  without  life  ?  What  can  teaching  be  under 
such  conditions  but  "  piece  work "  and  "  day 
labor"  ?  And  when  the  masters  complain  of  the 
mechanics  they  have  made  (but  neither  taught 
nor  consulted),  saying  that  most  teachers  put  no 
soul  into  their  work  and  get  no  high  spiritual 
result,  have  they  forgotten  that  great  beliefs  are 
never  carried  into  the  world  by  the  unbeliever  ? 
At  this  point  in  our  progress,  we  have  no 
xii 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

larger  need  than  for  a  philosophy  of  teaching, 
which  unifies  our  modern  complexities  from  the 
view-point  of  the  teacher,  and  raises  to  attention 
again,  in  new  and  accurate  ways,  the  nature  of 
the  teaching  personality  and  the  teaching  life. 
Such  we  offer  in  this  volume. 


PART  I 

THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 
IN  SCHOOL 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 
IN  SCHOOL 

The  Personality  of  the  Pupil 

Over  and  above  the  lessons  that  he  learns,  or 
rather  in  and  through  them,  the  pupil  is  devel- 
oping his  personality.  The  teacher,  however 
harsh  or  stupid  he  may  be,  cannot  altogether 
prevent  this  development ;  but  he  may  do  much 
to  repress  or  pervert  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
wise  and  sympathetic  teacher  can  do  much  to 
make  the  growing  personality  strong,  sweet,  and 
pure. 

Personality  develops  through  taking  up  and 
making  over  into  an  expression  of  itself,  mate- 
rials which  at  first  are  foreign  to  it.  To  stimu- 
late, guide,  restrain,  and,  without  appearing  to 
do  so,  for  that  very  reason  all  the  more  effect- 
ively to  control  this  development,  is  the  teach- 
er's task. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  recognize  five  stages 
in  our  educational  system,  —  the  primary,  the 
I 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

grammar,  the  high-school,  the  college,  and  the 
university.  All  these  stages  involve  this  same 
process  of  taking  up  and  making  over  into  its 
own  substance  materials  that  the  outside  world 
presents ;  and  therefore  in  its  broadest  sense, 
the  task  of  the  teacher  at  all  stages  is  the 
same. 

Yet  the  materials  taken  up,  and  the  methods 
of  appropriating  them,  are  different  at  these  dif- 
ferent stages ;  and  at  each  stage  the  problem 
assumes  a  special  form.  In  the  primary  school, 
the  teacher's  problem  is  to  suggest  a  series  of 
immediate  interests,  which  appeal  to  the  play  and 
imitative  instincts  which  in  these  years  are  the 
child's  chief  forms  of  reaction  on  his  environ- 
ment. In  the  lower  grammar  grades,  play-work 
must  give  way  to  sustained  efforts  at  tasks  not 
intrinsically  attractive,  but  which  are  made  arti- 
ficially preferable  through  rewards  bound  up  with 
them,  and  penalties  attached  to  the  opposite  al- 
ternatives. In  the  upper  grammar  grades  and  in 
the  high  school,  the  individuality  of  the  pupil, 
discovered  by  the  teacher  and  revealed  to  the 
pupil  as  a  plan  they  mutually  and  syrppatheti- 


PERSONALITY  OF  THE  PUPIL 

cally  share,  is  the  most  effective  organ  of  ap- 
propriation. In  college,  the  individual  expands 
through  sharing  the  thoughts  and  aims  of  other 
persons,  presented  both  in  literature  and  in  life. 
In  the  university,  professional  interest,  the  de- 
sire to  be  a  worthy  exponent  of  some  great  de- 
partment of  theory  or  practice,  supplies  the  sole 
and  all-sufficient  motive.  Without  claiming  that 
this  correspondence  is  complete,  the  five  stages 
of  our  educational  system  may  serve  at  least  as 
convenient  hooks  on  which  to  hang  the  five 
principles  of  personal  development. 

The  one  word  which  best  expresses  the  growth 
of  personality  by  feeding  on  the  materials  the  world 
presents  is  interest.  Accordingly,  our  five  stages 
of  development  will  appear  as  different  forms  of 
interest.  The  primary  school  is  the  sphere  of  sug- 
gested single  interests,  which  appeal  directly  and 
attractively  to  the  play  instinct  of  the  child.  The 
lower  grammar  grades  are  the  place  for  the 
maintenance  of  interests  by  artificially  contrived 
rewards  and  penalties.  The  upper  grammar 
grades  and  the  high  school  are  the  place  for  the 
individual  election  of  interests.  The  college  de- 
3 


THE  TEACHER'S   PHILOSOPHY 

velops  the  interest  in  other  persons.  The  uni- 
versity develops  the  interest  in  truth  for  its  own 
sake,  and  the  mastery  of  its  practical  applications. 

The  Primary  School:  Suggested  Immediate 
Interests 

The  problem  of  the  primary  school  is  to  keep 
the  children  occupied  in  doing  a  succession  of 
things  in  which  they  take  eager  interest,  and 
find  immediate  satisfaction.  This  gospel  of  the 
play  instinct,  guided  into  profitable  work  without 
letting  the  child  know  where  play  leaves  off  and 
work  begins,  was  the  great  contribution  of  the 
kindergarten.  It  is  perfectly  consistent  with  what 
is  of  permanent  value  in  the  kindergarten  prin- 
ciple to  substitute  for  the  specific  "  occupations  " 
and  "gifts''  of  the  traditional  kindergarten,  in- 
teresting activities  which  more  directly  lead  to 
a  mastery  of  the  conventional  tools  of  civiliza- 
tion. The  kindergarten  spirit  applied  to  the  tra- 
ditional primary-school  subjects,  as  well  as  to 
the  traditional  kindergarten  material,  gives  the 
ideal  primary  school.  The  essential  thing  at  first 
is  not  knowledge  of  this  or  that  subject ;  but  the 
4 


SUGGESTED   IMMEDIATE  INTERESTS 

child's  eager  interest  in  what  he  is  doing ;  the 
power  to  pursue  an  end  immediately  before  him, 
and  choose  the  means,  and  do  the  deeds  essential 
to  attain  that  end. 

In  order  to  take  an  intelligent  interest  in  any- 
thing, the  child  must  know  the  reality  for  which 
the  symbol  stands  before,  or  at  least  at  the  same 
time,  that  he  perceives  the  symbol.  As  Profes- 
sor Keith  *  well  says :  "  The  great  and  crowning 
blunder  and  danger  of  school  education  is  the 
effort  to  get  children  to  imitate  conventional 
activities  for  which  they  have  no  equivalent 
meanings.  The  movement  in  all  primary  educa- 
tion should  be  from  the  real  activity  —  from  the 
meaning  —  to  the  symbolical  expression." 

Counting  actual  objects,  putting  them  to- 
gether, taking  some  away  from  the  rest ;  putting 
piles  of  them  together ;  cutting  them  in  pieces 
and  counting  the  parts,  should  accompany  the 
fundamental  operations  of  arithmetic.  Making 
a  map  of  the  school  grounds  should  be  an  early 
lesson  in  geography.  Reading  something  to 
others  of  which  they  are  to  get  an  idea  should 

'  Keith,  Elementary  Education^  page  42. 

5 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

be  an  essential  part  of  the  reading  lesson.  Cor- 
respondence between  the  children  should  be  a 
feature  of  lessons  in  writing  and  spelling.  By 
these  and  similar  devices  the  kindergarten  spirit 
may  be  applied  to  the  primary-school  subjects ; 
and  a  school  may  be  developed  which  is  more 
sturdy  and  profitable  than  the  traditional  kinder- 
garten, and  more  interesting  and  vital  than  the 
traditional  primary  school. 

The  first  aim  of  the  primary  teacher  should 
be  to  keep  the  children  busy  doing  interesting 
things.  Give  a  child  four  lessons  to  learn  in  a 
school  day,  and  you  will  have  trouble  with  him 
all  day  long,  and  he  will  learn  next  to  nothing. 
Give  him  twenty  different  things  to  do,  each  re- 
quiring from  five  to  fifteen  minutes,  and  you  will 
have  very  little  trouble  with  him,  and  he  will 
learn  a  great  deal.  Voluntary  attention  to  a  les- 
son for  half  an  hour  is  a  sheer  impossibility.  De- 
rived attention  —  attention,  that  is,  derived  from 
his  interest  in  doing  something  —  is  the  only 
kind  of  attention  which  he  can  long  sustain. 

Now  if  the  traditional  kindergarten  things  are 
the  only  ones  a  teacher  can  clothe  with  this  active 
6 


SUGGESTED  IMMEDIATE   INTERESTS 

interest,  by  all  means  stick  to  them.  But  if  a 
teacher,  in  the  kindergarten  method  and  spirit,  can 
introduce  reading,  writing,  geography,  and  arith- 
metic, why,  the  sooner  it  is  done  the  better.  The 
essential  thing  is  to  appeal  to  the  will,  not  directly 
through  the  compulsion  of  authority,  but  indi- 
rectly through  the  attraction  of  interest ;  and  to 
sustain  activity,  not  through  fear  of  punishment, 
but  through  delight  in  doing  interesting  things. 
Keeping  this  principle  ever  in  mind,  it  does  no 
harm,  but  much  good,  to  remember  that  some 
kinds  of  activity  are  socially  more  serviceable 
than  others,  and  therefore  educationally  more 
fruitful. 

To  secure  the  greatest  personal  development 
of  the  child  at  this  stage,  the  will  of  the  child, 
eagerly  interested  in  doing  something  the  teacher 
has  wisely  suggested,  should  be  in  the  foreground, 
and  the  will  of  the  teacher,  which  to  be  sure  sug- 
gests and  guides  the  interest,  should  be  kept  in 
the  background.  This,  I  am  aware,  is  not  the  old 
theory  of  discipline,  which  has  come  to  us  through 
our  Puritan  inheritance.  That  theory  was  that  you 
must  break  the  child's  will ;  make  him  mind  ;  as- 
7 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

sert  authority ;  compel  obedience  as  the  founda- 
tion of  all  right  conduct.  I  have  set  forth  the  ex- 
act opposite;  that  the  first  duty  of  the  teacher  is 
not  to  break  but  to  strengthen  the  child^s  will ; 
to  show  him  how  to  make  the  world  mind  him; 
to  teach  him  to  exercise  his  own  authority  over 
matter ;  and  train  him  to  make  the  forces  around 
him  his  obedient  slaves. 

Here,  surely,  we  are  at  the  parting  of  the  ways 
in  our  whole  theory  of  education.  One  theory 
says,  "  Build  up  will "  ;  the  other,  "  Break  will 
down.'*  One  says,  "  Master  things  "  ;  the  other 
says,  "  Obey  the  teacher.'*  Which  is  right  ?  Both 
have  their  measure  of  truth,  as  we  shall  see  ;  but 
the  truth  in  the  first  is  fundamental  and  essential ; 
the  truth  in  the  second  is  incidental  and  auxiliary. 
The  first  should  be  the  teacher's  normal  aim  and 
expectation ;  the  second  is  an  occasionally  neces- 
sary adjustment  to  abnormality. 

The  aim  of  the  good  primary  teacher  is  to  keep 
the  children  doing  a  variety  of  things  which 
must  be  interesting,  and  may  be  as  profitable  as 
is  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  interest. 
The  skill  with  which  the  child's  interest  in  what 
8 


SUGGESTED  IMMEDIATE  INTERESTS 

he  is  doing  is  developed  and  sustained  is  the 
test  of  primary  teaching.  For  the  power  to  main- 
tain persistent  and  concentrated  attention  is  natu- 
rally lacking  in  the  child  at  this  stage.  If  the 
primary  teacher  passes  on  her  children  with  ca- 
pacity for  consecutive  attention  to  interesting 
things,  and  the  power  to  accomplish  desired  re- 
sults through  persistent  effort,  she  has  done  well 
her  educational  work.    If  the  things  which  they 


are  interested  in,  and  'tReretore  like  to  do  and 


^can  do,  are  at  the  same  time  socially  serviceable, 


that  is  so  miicti  clear  gain.  But  the  development 
of  will-power  through  interest,  in  place  of  the 
naturally  wandering,  inconstant  attention,  and  the 
wayward  and  capricious,  and  therefore  unservice- 
able will,  is  the  primary  teacher's  distinctive 
achievement. 

I  know  the  reader  is  eager  to  interrupt  at  this 
point  with  the  question,  Must  we  not  have  disci- 
pline.? Must  we  not  enforce  obedience.?  Must  we 
not  compel  the  child  to  do  dry,  disagreeable 
things  he  does  not  like,  and  does  not  want  to 
do  ?  Yes.  We  must  have  all  these  things,  in  one 
way  or  another,  soon  or  late;  but  it  is  a  very  poor 

9 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

sort  of  primary  teacher,  and  a  pitiful  sort  of  pri- 
mary school,  that  aims  at  them,  or  makes  much 
fuss  about  them,  or  measures  success  by  them. 
These  things  must  not  be  absent  from  the  school. 
But  they  should  be  in  the  background,  not  in  the 
foreground. 

Discipline  by  force  is  not  direct  education; 
but  it  is,  at  times,  and  with  a  minority  of  the 
children,  a  condition  of  education.  Such  disci- 
pline in  school  is  precisely  what  the  policeman 
and  the  jail  are  in  the  community.  You  must 
have  your  policeman  and  jailer  to  protect  the 
community  against  the  two  per  cent  of  its 
citizens  who  lack  the  normal  domestic,  eco- 
nomic, social,  and  civic  interests  in  life.  In  the 
same  way,  there  must  be  a  policeman  and  jailer 
quality  in  every  teacher ;  and,  figuratively  speak- 
ing, there  must  be  a  billy,  a  pair  of  hand-cuffs, 
and  a  cell  in  every  school.  No  school  is  any  more 
safe  without  them,  than  a  community.  They  are 
essential  to  the  prosecution  of  its  work;  and  they 
check  bad  habits,  and  induce  good  habits  in  the 
obstreperous  individual. 

Furthermore,  this  background  of  inexorable, 

10 


SUGGESTED  IMMEDIATE  INTERESTS 

impartial  discipline  must  win  on  every  issue  it 
joins,  and  fight  every  battle,  if  need  be,  to  the 
bitter  end.  In  the  rougher  days  of  a  generation 
ago,  a  young  Bowdoin  athlete  was  sent  out  to 
**keep  school''  in  a  district  where  three  successive 
teachers  had  been  put  out  of  the  building  by  the 
'*  big  boys,"  who,  after  a  long  season  of  farming 
and  fishing,  attended  the  winter  school.  The  com- 
mittee, in  despair,  made  a  contract  with  him 
which  insured  liberal  pay  in  case  he  should  keep 
school  throughout  the  whole  term  of  nine  weeks  ; 
but  stipulated  that  he  should  receive  no  pay 
whatever,  in  case  he  failed  to  teach  the  entire 
term.  On  the  first  day,  he  locked  the  door,  and 
put  the  key  in  his  pocket.  Then  he  took  off  his 
coat,  folded  it  and  laid  it  on  the  desk;  next  his 
waistcoat,  folded  that  and  laid  it  on  the  desk ; 
finally  his  suspenders,  deliberately  folded  them 
and  laid  them  on  his  desk.  Then  he  rolled  up  his 
sleeves,  showing  a  powerful  pair  of  arms.  Thus 
introduced,  he  made  his  opening  speech,  in  which 
he  said:  "Boys,  I  have  taken  this  school  on  con- 
dition that  if  I  teach  for  less  than  the  complete 
term,  I  get  no  pay.  I  don't  propose  to  waste  my 
II 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

time  here  teaching  for  nothing.  You  have  put 
out  the  last  three  teachers.  If  you  want  to  try 
me,  now  is  your  chance.  Come  one,  or  come  all ; 
but  come  nowr  He  kept  the  school,  and  drew 
his  pay. 

Under  those  circumstances,  he  did  right ;  and 
every  teacher  must  stand  ready  in  spirit,  if  not 
in  specific  detail,  to  do  likewise.  Yet  that  was 
not  education ;  any  more  than  clearing  the  wil- 
derness is  raising  crops.  It  was  a  preliminary  to 
education,  a  condition  of  education,  but  not  the 
thing  itself.  He  simply  subjected  the  brute  force 
and  the  will  behind  it  in  the  boys,  to  a  bigger 
brute  force  and  a  stronger  will  in  himself.  He  did 
not  build  up,  strengthen,  and  confirm  the  boys' 
control  over  themselves,  and  over  the  things  they 
had  to  do. 

We  do  not  judge  the  good  order  of  a  city  by 
the  number  of  arrests.  Some  are  necessary ;  but 
too  many  are  a  confession  that  something  is  wrong. 
There  must  be  some  discipline  active,  and  much 
more  latent,  in  every  school.  But  the  less  the 
better  ;  and  the  ideal  is  to  have  it  all  latent  and 
none  called  out.  While  ideals  are  never  perfectl}^ 


ARTIFICIALLY  WEIGHTED  INTERESTS 

realized,  yet  they  determine  the  tone  and  quality 
of  our  will-attitudes.  Making  all  the  concessions 
required  by  the  strictest  Puritan  about  the  ne- 
cessity of  discipline  as  a  last  resort  always  latent 
in  the  background,  and  occasionally  a  regrettable 
feature  of  the  foreground,  the  ideal  of  the  primary 
school  is  the  strengthening  of  will,  through  inter- 
est. True  as  it  is  that  there  are  hard  and  disa- 
greeable things  which  must  be  done,  whether  one 
likes  them  or  not,  the  best  preparation  for  them, 
at  this  primary  stage,  is  the  development  of  power 
to  do  things  which  one  likes  to  do.  That  power, 
to  be  sure,  must  later  be  transferred  to  dry  and 
disagreeable  tasks.  But  the  problem  distinctive 
of  the  primary  school  is  not  the  transmission  of 
power  to  this  or  that  particular  machine  or  pro- 
cess ;  but  the  generation  of  power  which  later 
can  be  applied  wherever  wanted. 

The  Grammar  School:  Artificially  Weighted 
Interests 

Now  that  the  primary  school  has  developed 
the  power  to  follow  for  a  considerable  period  a 
single  interest  of  some  difficulty  and  some  im- 
13 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

portance,  the  grammar  school  must  train  the 
child  to  weigh  one  interest  as  compared  with  an- 
other; reject  the  lesser,  and  accept  the  greater, 
notwithstanding  the  temporary  pains,  privations, 
and  difficulties  the  following  of  the  greater  inter- 
est may  involve. 

As  soon  as  we  reach  the  grammar  grade ;  as 
soon,  that  is,  as  we  begin  to  give  out  lessons  to 
be  studied  through  half -hour  periods  by  the  chil- 
dren individually  in  their  seats  ;  in  other  words, 
as  soon  as,  instead  of  suggesting  single  lines  of 
interest  to  them,  we  begin  to  place  before  them 
a  task  not  immediately  and  intrinsically  of  com- 
pelling interest,  but  one  which  they  can  follow 
only  by  rejecting  hosts  of  competing  interests 
that  are  immediate  and  urgent,  then  the  great 
moral  conflict  is  on. 

In  this  great  conflict,  the  tragic  fact  is  that 
nature  almost  always  backs  the  impulse  which, 
from  the  social  point  of  view,  is  the  less  valuable. 
Nature  cares  supremely  at  this  stage  for  exercise, 
nutrition,  play  ;  and  expresses  these  physiological 
interests  in  restlessness,  mischief,  indolence,  and 
wool-gathering.  These  physiological  impulses, 
14 


ARTIFICIALLY  WEIGHTED    INTERESTS 

backed  by  heredity,  stimulated  by  environment, 
are  intrinsically  much  stronger  in  their  appeal  to 
the  child  than  such  pale,  bloodless  conceptions 
as  fractions,  latitude  and  longitude,  subject  and 
predicate,  and  the  other  tools  of  civilization  that 
the  school  is  seeking  to  put  into  his  hands.  Now 
the  child  must  choose  between  two  things  of  un- 
equal value ;  and  the  worst  of  it  is  that  nature 
has  given  the  less  valuable  competitor  the  inside 
track.  Before  the  development  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution,  we  used  to  put  all  the  blame  for  this 
situation  on  the  child  himself,  and  label  it  "  total 
depravity,"  and  try  to  take  it  out  of  him  by  the 
rod.  The  child  is  not  to  blame  ;  and  yet  the  child 
left  to  himself  will  choose  the  lesser  good  almost 
every  time. 

At  this  stage,  the  teacher's  task  is  clear.  It  is 
to  lighten  and  brighten  the  larger  good  with  such 
artificial  encouragements,  rewards,  advantages, 
and  attractions  that,  in  spite  of  the  pull  of  nature 
in  the  opposite  direction,  the  child  will  choose 
that  larger  good  which  arithmetic,  and  grammar, 
and  geography,  and  nature  study,  and  drawing, 
and  the  other  studies  represent.  It  is  to  weight 
15 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

down  restlessness,  and  inattention,  and  laziness, 
and  inconsiderateness  of  all  sorts  with  such  auto- 
matic artificial  penalties,  and  privations,  and  dis- 
abilities, that  he  will  of  his  own  preference  re- 
ject them. 

Here  again  the  teacher's  will  must  be  done; 
but  it  must  be  done  as  far  as  possible  by  keeping 
itself  in  the  background,  and  by  bringing  the 
child's  will  into  the  foreground.  The  wise  teacher 
does  not  lay  down  the  law  arbitrarily,  and  then 
enforce  her  will  directly  against  the  will  of  the 
child.  As  before,  in  extreme  cases,  that  may 
be  necessary,  and  should  always  be  held,  like 
the  policeman  and  the  lock-up,  in  reserve.  But 
it  is  not  the  ideal  which  the  teacher  should  have 
in  mind  ;  it  is  not  the  attitude  she  should  cul- 
tivate. On  the  contrary,  the  grammar-school 
teacher  should  recognize  as  her  distinctive  task 
the  lightening  of  the  better  and  the  weighting  of 
the  worse  alternative,  so  that  between  the  two 
scales,  thus  lightened  and  weighted,  the  child 
will  make  the  right  choice  for  himself,  as  a  free 
act  of  his  own  will. 

It  is  no  easy  task  by  artifice  thus  to  make  the 
i6 


ARTIFICIALLY  WEIGHTED  INTERESTS 

path  of  study  the  more  attractive,  and  keep  the 
children  marching,  breast  forward,  intent  upon 
a  series  of  goals  just  far  enough  ahead  to  let 
them  draw  encouragement  from  the  prospect  and 
not  so  far  ahead  as  to  be  discouraging.  Manual 
training  is  an  immense  help  at  this  point ;  for  the 
thing  to  be  done  is  ever  in  the  future,  yet  so  re- 
lated to  present  effort,  and  so  dependent  upon 
present  industry,  patience,  perseverance,  care- 
fulness, and  thoroughness,  that  the  vision  of  the 
completed  product  brightens  and  lightens  the 
labor  of  the  moment  and  the  hour.  The  worker 
who  cares  for  his  work  is  always  living  "  by  the_^ 
glad  light  of  iuturitYj/'  and  unconsciouslyoevel- 
oping  the  subordination  of  present  inclination  to 
future  satisfaction. 

Frequent  opportunity  for  special  as  well  as  reg- 
ular promotion;  and,  in  some  way  or  other,  the 
recognition  of  quality  as  well  as  quantity  of  work 
as  the  proper  basis  of  promotion,  is  another  de- 
vice which,  besides  being  educationally  and  eco- 
nomically valuable,  is  of  great  assistance  in  de- 
veloping that  eager  forward  look  which  ought  to 
mark  the  children  in  a  well-conducted  grammar 
17 


THE  TEACHER'S   PHILOSOPHY 

school.  Nothing  is  more  deadening  than  the  lock- 
step  by  which  good  and  bad,  bright  and  dull, 
ambitious  and  listless,  are  marched  through  the 
grammar  grades.  It  is  convenient  for  the  school, 
but  costly  and  deadly  for  the  scholars.  If  the  boy 
is  made  for  the  school,  this  lock-step,  with  only 
one  regular  annual  promotion,  is  all  right.  If  the 
school  is  made  for  the  boys  and  girls,  it  is  utterly 
wrong.  Some  things  taught  in  the  grammar 
school,  like  mathematics,  are  of  such  a  nature 
that  unless  he  knows  thoroughly  what  is  taught 
in  the  lower  grade,  the  child  cannot  successfully 
take  up  the  work  of  the  next  higher  grade.  For 
instance,  the  subject  of  interest  could  not  be 
profitably  taught  without  acquaintance  with  deci- 
mal fractions. 

On  the  contrary,  most  of  the  subjects  taught 
in  the  grammar  grades  are  not  of  this  nature.  A 
bright  boy  who  has  studied  the  geography  of 
Europe,  can  take  up  the  study  of  the  geography 
of  Africa  with  a  class  which  has  studied  the 
geography  of  Asia,  even  though  he  has  not.  The 
ambitious  boy  should  be  encouraged  to  skip  one 
or  two  of  the  grammar  grades;  and  provision 
i8 


ARTIFICIALLY  WEIGHTED  INTERESTS 

should  be  made  toward  the  end  of  the  term  for 
his  concentration  on  the  essential  features  of  the 
work  of  the  class  just  ahead  of  him,  which  he  is 
about  to  skip. 

It  is  not  the  economic  or  even  the  strictly 
intellectual  gains  —  important  as  these  are  — 
that  I  am  chiefly  commending.  It  is  the  moral 
attitude  encouraged  by  frequent  promotion.  It 
is  the  placing  of  a  portion  of  responsibility 
for  the  child's  progress  upon  the  child  himself. 
Frequent  promotion,  the  counting  of  quality, 
as  well  as  quantity,  as  a  ground  for  promo- 
tion, develops  prudence  instead  of  indifference; 
eagerness  instead  of  listlessness ;  ambition  in- 
stead of  sloth ;  responsibility  instead  of  irre- 
sponsibility. 

Manual  training  and  frequent  promotion  are 
matters  of  administration,  and  depend  mainly 
upon  the  superintendent.  There  is  a  large  field, 
however,  which  depends  almost  exclusively  upon 
the  teacher.  Given  the  same  subjects  to  teach, 
one  teacher  will  contrive  to  hold  up  ideals,  to 
hold  out  inducements,  to  create  the  expectation 
of  satisfaction  in  achievement,  which  makes  pre- 
19 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

sent  toil  glow  with  the  ardor  of  future  delight  in 
the  thing  accomplished;  while  another  teacher, 
less  resourceful,  will  make  the  same  subjects  a 
dead  lift  by  sheer  force  of  will  under  slavish  com- 
pulsion. Not  external  results  alone,  but  the  sense 
of  freedom  which  the  children  have  in  achiev- 
ing them,  are  the  test  of  good  grammar-school 
teaching. 

The  High  School:  Elected  Individual  Interests 

With  the  dawn  of  adolescence,  individuality 
appears;  and  then  wise  choice  is  not  between 
things  which  appeal  to  everybody  as  greater  or 
less,  better  or  worse,  but  between  what  appeals 
to  me,  with  my  capacities,  tastes,  aptitudes,  and 
preferences,  and  what  does  not  appeal  to  me. 
Here  the  boy  is  different  from  the  girl ;  the  fu- 
ture artisan  from  the  future  artist ;  the  future 
lawyer  from  the  future  engineer.  Here  ought  to 
come,  if  possible,  industrial  and  commercial,  as 
well  as  merely  literary  training;  that  the  student 
may  learn  by  a  fair  trial  where  his  deepest  affin- 
ities lie.  Here  the  elective  principle  is  essential. 
Here  the  choice  whether  to  go  to  college,  or  to 
20 


ELECTED  INDIVIDUAL  INTERESTS 

a  technical  school,  or  into  mechanical  or  com- 
mercial pursuits,  must  be  provisionally  made. 
Here  the  high  school  has  a  just  grievance  against 
the  colleges,  in  so  far  as  the  rigidity  and  amount 
of  college  requirements  interfere  with  opportunity 
to  try  a  student  out  in  lines  other  than  mathe- 
matics, languages,  and  theoretical  science ;  or  to 
turn  aside  from  prescribed  work  to  follow  out 
interesting  applications  of  mathematics  and  sci- 
ence to  practical  affairs. 

The  principal  of  a  Boston  grammar  school,  in 
a  recent  article  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  went  so 
far  as  to  advocate  the  appointment  in  every  school 
of  a  vocational  teacher,  whose  sole  duty  should 
be  to  consult  with  the  individual  students,  ascer- 
tain their  bent  and  power,  and  direct  them  into 
those  studies  which  would  lead  them  to  the  choice 
of  the  vocation  for  which  they  are  best  adapted. 
So  extreme  a  suggestion  is  hardly  practical.  But 
every  teacher  in  the  upper  grammar  grades,  and 
in  the  high  school,  ought  to  help  his  students  to 
discover  their  own  capacities  and  form  plans  of 
life  according  to  them.  The  teacher  in  the  upper 
grammar  grades,  and  in  the  high  school,  may 

21 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

take  it  for  granted  that  every  student  in  the  school 
is  reaching  out,  more  or  less  blindly,  but  eagerly 
and  intently,  to  find  that  aspect  of  the  many-sided 
world  with  which  he  or  she  has  the  deepest  af- 
finity, and  that  career  in  life  which  will  prove 
most  useful  and  enjoyable. 

Influence  at  this  stage  cannot  be  wholesale, 
but  must  be  individual  and  personal.  The  high- 
school  teacher  who  knows  only  the  school  or 
class  as  a  whole,  does  not  know  either  school  or 
class  at  all.  The  teacher's  philosophic  task  at 
this  stage  is  to  discover  and  reveal  to,  the  ygutlL 
his  undiscovered,  longed-for  self.  This  self  does 
not  lie  upon  the  surface ;  and,  if  sought  directly, 
will  dive  down  far  out  of  reach.  It  is  discovered 
through  the  discovery  of  special  aptitude  where 
that  exists ;  through  the  discovery  of  what  the 
youth  admires  in  others  ;  and  still  more,  through 
the  formation  of  tentative  plans.  These  plans 
which  youth  forms  at  this  stage  may  or  may  not 
be  exchanged  for  other  and  better  plans  later, 
but  some  plan  the  youth  at  this  stage  ought  to 
have ;  and  it  is  through  that  plan,  and  loyalty  to 
it  for  the  time  being,  that  his  salvation  at  this 

22 


ELECTED  INDIVIDUAL  INTERESTS 

stage  is  best  worked  out.  The  future  of  the 
youth  is  much  more  subject  to  the  influence 
of  the  parent  and  teacher  then  than  either  be- 
fore or  after.  Before  this  period,  influence  is 
easy  and  superficial.  After  that  time  it  may  be 
profound,  but  it  is  difficult.  The  high-school 
teacher  who  knows  his  students  individually, 
and  leads  them  to  the  recognition  of  their  deeper 
selves,  is  almost  omnipotent  for  determination  of 
both  career  and  character. 

I  have  in  mind  a  principal  who  has  been  at 
the  head  of  two  academies  and  one  city  high 
school.  From  whatever  school  he  has  served  as 
principal,  there  has  come  to  college  a  steady 
stream  of  well-prepared  and  earnest  students  who 
know  why  they  are  coming  to  college.  When  he 
goes  to  a  school,  the  stream  starts ;  and  when 
he  leaves,  unless  he  is  followed  by  a  like-minded 
successor,  the  stream  dries  up.  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  college  is  the  best  thing  for  every 
high-school  student ;  but  it  is  one  of  many  good 
things,  and  it  is  within  reach  of  many  who 
would  never  attain  it  without  a  wise  teacher's 
encouragement.  I  have  no  doubt  this  same 
23 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

teacher  is  sending  equally  thoughtful  students 
into  business  and  mechanical  pursuits  with  en- 
thusiastic devotion  to  the  vocation  for  which 
they  are  best  adapted. 

The  teacher  who,  in  the  high  school,  will  do 
this  work  of  revealing  the  student  to  himself, 
and  discovering  his  individual  purpose,  must  of 
course  have  a  purpose  of  his  own.  Unless  one 
has  chosen  teaching  because  that  is  what  he 
feels  specifically  designed  and  drawn  to  do,  he 
will  hardly  have  power  to  lead  others  into  what 
shall  be  to  them  an  equally  noble  and  enjoyable 
career.  You  can  never  discover  the  true  self  in 
others  unless  you  nave  found  and  worked  out 
your  own.  The  true  high-school  teacher  finds 
his  crowning  opportunity  in  revealing  to  his 
students  some  appealing  career  and  compelling 
purpose  which  shall  be  to  them  what  teaching  is 
to  him. 

Where  this  mutual  understanding  based  on 
recognition  of  the  student's  purpose  is  present, 
discipline  solves  itself;  or  rather  the  necessity 
for  it  disappears.  Where  this  fails,  communi- 
cation with  parents  is  the  next  best  resource. 
24 


SOCIAL  INTERESTS 

Here,  as  everywhere,  there  must  be  in  the  back- 
ground compulsion  or  expulsion  as  a  last  resort. 
But  the  ideal  resource  of  every  teacher  fit  to 
teach  in  high  school  or  upper  grammar  grades, 
is  the  student's  developed  purpose,  sympatheti- 
cally shared. 

The  College:  Social  Interests 

We  have  developed  a  will  strong  enough  to 
seek  persistently  a  single  interest,  a  will  wise 
enough  to  choose  the  bigger  of  two  competing 
interests,  a  will  sufficiently  individual  to  resist 
the  greater  which  is  not  one's  own  for  the  sake 
of  the  lesser,  provided  that  lesser  interest  ap- 
peals to  specific  capacity  and  taste.  All  this, 
however,  is  consistent  with  a  very  mean  and  selfish 
attitude  toward  others.  The  next  problem  is  to 
develop  a  will  which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  takes 
account  of  the  aims,  interests,  rights,  prefer- 
ences, and  points  of  view  of  other  persons,  and 
includes  them  in  the  social  interest  one  makes 
his  own.  To  train  men  to  recognize  these  social 
interests  is  the  specific  task  of  the  college. 

The  college  develops  this  social  will  in  two 
25 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

ways :  First,  by  the  subjects  in  its  curriculum. 
First  of  these  is  literature,  and  especially  the 
literature  of  lands  and  ages  other  than  our  own. 
To  read  good  literature  is  the  best  way  of  ac- 
quiring the  habit  of  living  in  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  other  people,  and  learning  how  to  take  their 
point  of  view.  Of  course  when  literature  is  made 
a  mere  pretext  for  grammatical,  linguistic,  and 
philological  study,  all  this  is  lost.  The  tendency 
in  this  direction,  which  we  imported  from  Ger- 
many a  generation  ago,  and,  to  some  extent  have 
reinforced  in  our  own  graduate  schools,  if  allowed 
to  flourish  would  be  the  death  and  destruction  of 
the  college.  Unfortunately,  the  great  wave  of  in- 
terest in  physical  science  which  swept  over  the 
world  a  generation  ago  under  the  lead  of  men  like 
Darwin,  Huxley,  and  Tyndall,  frightened  and 
spoiled  a  great  many  of  our  college  professors  of 
literature.  Forsaking  literature  as  literature,  and 
devoting  themselves  to  philology  and  grammar, 
they  substituted  for  the  warm  and  breathing 
life  of  Greek,  Roman,  and  European  letters  the 
dry  roots  and  dead  branches  of  the  most  dis- 
mal of  pseudo-sciences.  If  we  desire  to  preserve 
26 


SOCIAL  INTERESTS 

the  college  and  hold  it  to  its  true  purpose  of 
developing  the  social  will  in  men,  we  must  re- 
sist, as  we  would  poison  and   the  plague,  this 
tendency  to  degrade   literature  into  the  mere 
material  of  science,  and  put  the  classification^ 
of  dead  symbols  above  the  appreciation  of  the] 
states  of  mind    and  heart    these  symbols  are] 
meant  to  express. 

A  man  may  go  through  the  philological  dis- 
cipline at  present  required  for  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Philosophy  without  losing  the  power  of  appre- 
ciation and  creation ;  many,  however,  are  ruined 
in  the  attempt.  At  present  there  are  not  enough 
who  have  survived  the  process  to  fill  a  quarter 
part  of  the  chairs  in  literature.  The  spirit 
and  the  letter  are  both  desirable  when  they 
can  be  found  in  happy  combination ;  but  for 
strictly  college  purposes,  the  man  who  has  the 
spirit  of  literature  without  the  letter  of  philology 
is  infinitely  preferable  to  the  man  who  has  the 
letter  without  the  spirit.  Perhaps,  as  the  Dean 
of  Dartmouth  College  has  told  us  in  an  article 
in  the  Educational  Review  on  "The  Critical 
Period  for  the  American  College/'  the  greatest 
27 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

problem  of  the  college  administrator  at  the  pre- 
sent day  is  to  protect  his  faculty  against  the  in- 
vasion of  the  latter  type  of  man. 

Philosophy,  history,  and  political  science  come 
next  to  pure  literature  in  their  value  for  the  de- 
velopment of  social  interests.  To  think  out  the 
problems  of  life  in  the  terms  in  which  the  master 
minds  have  thought  of  them  ;  to  read  through  the 
deeds  to  the  motives  of  the  men  who  did  them ; 
ITndto  discover  the  processes  which  have  made 
and  un-made  institutions  and  customs,  are  all 
exercises  in  the  art  of  acting  outside  our  in- 
dividual selves,  and  taking  the  social,  national, 
world-wide  point  of  view. 

The  physical  sciences,  —  physics,  chemistry, 
biology,  geology,  psychology,  and  astronomy,  — 
as  they  are  presented  in  the  elementary  college 
courses,  are  also  a  training  in  the  appreciation  of 
scientific  men  and  their  achievements.  In  each 
department,  one  or  two  advanced  courses  may 
pass  beyond  this  attitude  of  appreciation,  and 
enter  on  strictly  scientific  research.  That,  how- 
ever, is  the  distinctive  province  of  the  university. 
The  great  bulk  of  college  teaching,  even  on 
28 


SOCIAL  INTERESTS 

strictly  scientific  subjects,  is  directed  toward  the 
enlarging  and  humanizing  of  the  student,  rather 
than  the  enlarging  and  utilizing  of  scientific 
knowledge.  Broadly  speaking,  subject  only  to 
occasional  exceptions  in  a  few  advanced  courses, 
the  college  curriculum  is  determined  by  the  fit- 
ness of  the  subjects  which  enter  into  it  to  stim- 
ulate and  develop  the  social  interests  of  the 
students. 

Secondly,  the  college  trains  its  students  in  so-j 
cial  interests  through  the  life  they  lead  with  each 
other.  One  cannot  live  three  or  four  years  with 
several  hundred  other  youth  in  the  pursuit  of 
congenial  studies,  in  class  and  fraternity  affilia- 
tions, in  athletic  and  literary  contests  which  call 
out  loyalty  to  comrades  and  strenuous  opposi- 
tion to  temporary  foes,  without  learning  that  an- 
other person's  will  is  as  real  as  one's  own,  and  ■ 
that  the  likes  and  dislikes,  the  whims  and  preju- 
dices, the  sentiments  and  aspirations  of  other 
persons  are  facts  as  real  and  as  necessary  to 
reckon  with  as  brick  and  stone. 

By  these  two  methods  of  prolonged  and  vital 
appreciation  of  literature,  philosophy,  history,  and 
29 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

science  on  the  one  hand,  and  intimate,  intense 
contact  with  persons  as  persons  on  the  other, 
the  college  makes  genial,  generous,  tactful,  influ- 
ential, effective  persons  out  of  the  young  men 
and  women  who  come  to  it. 

In  fact,  in  these  days,  our  one  fear  is  that  we 
may  do  this  work  too  well.  The  danger  is  that 
we  make  our  graduates  so  genial  and  generous, 
so  companionable  and  comfortable,  that  they  may 
lose  some  of  that  sturdy  independence  and  self- 
centred  individuality  which  the  right  sort  of 
high  school  develops,  and  which  is  essential  to 
the  highest  f orcefulness  and  the  largest  achieve- 
ment. As  soon  as  boys  catch  the  real  college 
spirit,  the  power  of  merely  individualistic  mo- 
tives over  them  becomes  greatly  diminished.  One 
reason  why  athletics,  fraternities,  college  papers, 
and  college  functions  appeal  so  strongly  to  them 
is  that  in  all  these  things  they  seem  to  be  serving 
the  larger  social  rather  than  the  narrower  pri- 
vate self.  It  is  highly  desirable,  yes,  imperative, 
to  get  intellectual  achievement  and  intellectual 
honors  back  into  the  focus  of  the  student's atten- 

1,  and  present  them  as  attractive  objects  to 


SOCIAL  INTERESTS 

his  will ;  but  if  we  ever  succeed  in  doing  this,  it 
will  not  be  by  reviving  the  old  and  out-grown  ap- 
peal to  his  mere  individual  and  selfish  ambition  : 
we  shall  have  to  appeal  to  him  as  a  member  of 
his  family,  his  class,  his  fraternity,  his  college,  his 
community,  his  profession,  his  country;  and  show 
him  that  intellectual  achievement  has  a  social 
value,  renders  a  public  service,  and  reflects  honor 
on  something  more  than  his  mere  individual  self. 
To  find  and  work  these  new  motives  will  doubt- 
less require  no  little  enterprise  and  ingenuity; 
but  it  is  some  gain  to  see  clearly  and  precisely 
where  the  difficulty  lies,  and  it  is  some  comfort 
to  know  that  even  the  present  tendencies  in  col- 
lege which  we  most  deplore  have  a  secret  root  of 
goodness  underneath  them,  and  are  merely  mis- 
applications of  the  very  principle  which  it  is  the 
distinctive  province  of  the  college  to  develop  and 
utilize. 

Here,  as  in  lower  stages,  discipline  will  be 
present  in  the  background,  automatic,  impartial, 
inexorable,  to  exclude  the  incorrigible  few  who 
are  incapable  of  appreciating  and  improving 
that  perfect  freedom  both  in  study  and  in  life 
31 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

which  is  the  only  atmosphere  a  college  which  is 
to  develop  the  social  will  can  breathe :  but  the 
appeal  of  the  college,  both  in  study  and  in  life, 
will  be  through  freedom,  not  constraint ;  it  will 
be  the  presentation  of  rich,  varied  opportunity, 
and  an  appeal  to  the  student  to  make  the  most 
of  it. 

While  this  development  of  the  social  will  is 
the  peculiar  province  of  the  college,  and  nothing 
short  of  the  college,  as  a  rule,  can  develop  it  into 
that  intense  second  nature  which  is  indispensable 
for  the  highest  business,  political,  and  social 
leadership,  anticipations  of  it  are  possible  and 
desirable  in  the  high  school  and  the  grammar 
school.  Indeed,  as  far  down  as  the  kindergarten, 
all  exercises  that  involve  cooperation  and  all  train- 
ing in  regard  for  the  rights  of  others  and  the  con- 
ditions of  common  welfare  so  far  forth  are  means 
of  training  in  the  social  will.  The  prefect  system  1 
and  the  school  city,  all  cooperative  undertakings,  \ 
all  delegated  duties,  all  associations  for  musical, 
athletic,  and  kindred  purposes  in  the  schools  are 
developments  of  the  college  spirit ;  every  insight 
into  human  character  and  motive  imparted  in  a 

32  I 


SOCIAL  INTERESTS 

lesson  in  reading  or  history,  is  a  training  in  the 
social  will.  Some  high  schools,  like  the  Univer- 
sity High  School  of  Chicago,  find  it  possible  to 
maintain  almost  as  complex  and  highly  developed 
a  set  of  social  activities  as  a  college.  In  the 
schools,  however,  these  activities  require  con- 
stant direction  and  supervision  :  they  need  to  be 
kept  very  strictly  to  the  special  end  of  athletics,  de- 
bating, or  music,  which  is  their  avowed  purpose. 
The  secret  fraternity  in  the  high  school  is  an 
abomination  not  to  be  tolerated.  Young  persons 
are  not  sufficiently  developed  to  organize  a 
wholesome  social  life  of  their  own  and  maintain 
it  for  its  own  sake.  As  sure  as  they  attempt  it, 
the  worst  impulses  and  instincts  in  them  will 
gain  the  upper  hand,  and  make  the  fraternity  the 
source  and  centre  of  demoralization.  It  is  difficult 
enough  to  hold  these  fraternities  to  their  legiti- 
mate ends  in  a  college  ;  in  a  school  it  is  as  a  rule 
impossible. 

Just  as  the  study  and  life  in  the  school  may 

anticipate  many  of  the  valuable  features  of  college 

study  and  life,  so  the  attitude  of  the  teacher  in 

the  grammar  and  high  school  may  embody  much 

33 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

that  is  most  valuable  in  the  attitude  of  the  college 
officer  toward  his  students.  The  college  officer 
should  always  include  the  point  of  view  of  the 
student  in  his  treatment  of  him.  This  is  essen- 
tial to  the  teacher's  successful  discipline  in  any 
grade.  As  long  as  the  student  feels  that  you 
understand  him,  appreciate  his  good  qualities  as 
well  as  his  bad  qualities,  make  due  allowance  for 
his  weakness  and  temptation,  and  give  due  weight 
to  his  peculiar  point  of  view,  you  can  say  any- 
thing to  him,  however  harsh ;  you  can  do  anything 
to  him,  however  severe ;  and  he  will  not  resent 
it.  The  men  you  treat  most  severely  will  be  your 
best  friends ;  for  they  know  their  failings  as  well 
as  you  do,  and  are  willing  to  acknowledge  them. 
If,  along  with  their  failings,  you  know  and  recog- 
nize their  better  side,  they  will  appreciate  you  as 
their  friend  even  when  the  attitude  you  are  com- 
pelled to  take  toward  their  conduct  is  uncom- 
fj  promisingly  hostile.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you 
I  have  not  acquired  this  power  to  see  and  appre- 
ciate others  as  they  really  are,  and  to  include 
their  point  of  view  in  your  own,  you  will  find  it 
impossible  to  live  with  them  in  peace  on  any 
34 


SOCIAL  INTERESTS 

terms.  If  you  are  kind  to  them,  they  will  despise 
you  as  weak,  and  try  to  take  advantage  of  you  ; 
if  you  are  unkind  to  them,  they  will  resent  it  as 
an  intrusion  and  set  you  down  as  a  brute.  Not  to 
be  understood  by  the  person  who  undertakes  to 
deal  with  him  in  any  way  is,  to  the  student's 
mind,  the  only  unpardonable  sin.  However  bad 
he  may  be,  however  wrong  his  acts  may  have 
been,  as  long  as  there  are  good  sides  to  his 
nature  which  you  do  not  discover  and  appreciate, 
he  will  regard  you  in  his  inmost  heart  as  an  alien 
and  an  enemy ;  as  a  smaller,  lower  person  than 
himself;  as  his  moral  and  spiritual  inferior.  In 
this  harsh  judgment  that  he  will  pass  upon  you, 
the  worst  of  it  is  that  he  is  absolutely  right.  To 
deal  with  persons  as  though  they  were  things ; 
to  deal  with  the  acts  of  a  person  as  though  those 
acts  were  the  whole  personality ;  not  to  under- 
stand a  person  with  whom  you  presume  to  deal, 
—  this  is  indeed  the  teacher's  unpardonable  sin. 
Whoever  lacks  that  social  insight  and  tact  ought 
either  to  set  about  acquiring  it  in  earnest,  or  re- 
sign at  once.  That  person  has  no  more  business 
to  be  teaching  young  persons  than  an  infant  has 
35 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

to  be  playing  with  loaded  guns  or  dynamite 
bombs. 

Now  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  college  is  the 
only  way  in  which  this  power  to  include  others  in 
one's  self  may  be  acquired.  I  simply  say  that  it 
is  one  way,  and,  as  the  best  colleges  are  at  present 
conducted,  an  almost  universally  successful  way. 
The  best  substitutes  for  college  are  simply  the 
two  things  for  which  the  college  primarily  stands. 
If  you  can  read  and  enjoy,  either  by  yourself,  or, 
better  still,  with  one  or  two  congenial  friends, 
the  great  dramas,  poems,  novels,  biographies,  and 
histories,  you  may  acquire  this  distinctive  college 
quality  in  this  way ;  or,  if  you  have  the  good  for- 
tune to  be  born  in  a  large  family,  if  you  live  in 
close  and  intimate  association  with  a  group  of 
comrades,  you  may  acquire  it  in  that  way.  In 
some  way  or  other,  you  must  acquire  this  quality 
if  you  are  to  be  a  successful  teacher.  I  suspect 
that  when  superintendents  and  committees  insist 
on  college  men  and  women  in  certain  school  po- 
sitions, they  have  in  mind  this  insight  and  tact 
gained  by  personal  intimacy  with  others,  either 
in  literature  or  life,  quite  as  much  as  the  specific 

36 


PROFESSIONAL  INTERESTS 

and  scholastic  accomplishments  for  which  a  col- 
lege diploma  stands.  One  cannot  teach  at  allj 
who  does  not  know  his  subject;  one  cannot  teach 
well  who  does  not  know  his  students ;  and  onel 
cannot  know  his  students  who  has  not  previously! 
known  intimately  and  appreciatively  scores  of 
other  persons,  either  in  literature  or  life,  or  pre- 
ferably in  both. 

The  college,  then,  stands  for  the  will  that  in- 
cludes other  wills  in  its  own,  and  deals  with  per- 
sons as  persons,  not  as  things.  It  represents  in 
a  broad  way  that  justice  based  on  the  recogni- 
tion of  mutual  rights  in  the  society  of  equals 
which  was  Rome's  great  contribution  to  the 
world.  It  contributes  something  which  it  is  not 
well  for  any  teacher  to  be  without ;  for  good  teach- 
ing is  the  bringing  together  of  two  terms,  the  sub- 
ject and  the  student ;  and  the  teacher  who  lacks 
this  college  quality,  however  much  he  may  know 
about  his  subject,  can  never  know  his  students. 

The  University :  Professional  Interests 

Now  that  we  have  provided  the  student  with 
the  power  to  pursue  a  single  interest ;  to  choose 
37 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

the  larger  interest ;  to  express  himself  in  his  in- 
terests ;  and  to  recognize  and  treat  other  persons 
as  persons,  and  include  in  his  own  will  the  wills 
of  the  persons  with  whom  he  lives,  only  one  fur- 
ther step  remains  :  that  is,  to  see  and  obey  the 
universal  system  of  interests  which  is  expressed 
in  the  laws  of  nature,  and  coming  to  expression 
in  the  history  and  institutions,  the  thoughts  and 
ideals  of  men.  To  teach  men  that  there  are  facts 
independent  of  our  caprice  or  choice,  and  that 
these  facts  have  laws  which  it  is  our  glory  to  dis- 
cover and  obey  —  this  field  of  pure  science  is 
the  distinctive  province  of  the  university.  Not 
what  I  like,  not  what  other  people  like,  but  what 
is,  forms  the  subject  of  university  study.  The 
difference  between  the  university  attitude  and 
those  which  have  preceded  it  is  happily  illustrated 
by  a  conversation  between  President  Oilman 
and  Professor  Sylvester,  the  great  mathematician. 
They  went  to  the  opera  one  evening,  but  Profes- 
sor Sylvester  took  apparently  no  interest  in  what 
was  going  on.  As  they  were  coming  out.  Presi- 
dent Oilman  asked  him  how  he  enjoyed  the 
opera.  Professor  Sylvester  said,  "I  became  in- 
38 


PROFESSIONAL  INTERESTS 

terested  in  a  mathematical  problem  and  forgot 
all  about  the  opera."  Then  he  went  on  to  de- 
scribe a  remarkable  discovery  he  had  made. 
When  he  had  finished,  President  Gilman  said  to 
him,  "Do  you  not  wonder  at  the  powers  of  your 
own  mind?"  "No,"  replied  Professor  Sylvester, 
"but  I  wonder  that  these  things  are  so."  The 
emphasis  here,  you  see,  is  not,  as  in  the  high 
school  and  college  stages,  on  the  individual  and 
the  development  of  his  powers,  but  on  facts  ex- 
pressed in  law.  Now  the  function  of  the  uni- 
versity is  to  make  its  students  bow  before  the 
authority  of  fact,  and  through  obedience  to  the 
laws  of  fact,  become  masters  of  those  depart- 
ments of  knowledge  and  those  practical  vocations 
in  which  these  facts  and  their  laws  apply.  Once 
some  department  or  vocation  is  selected,  that 
subject  becomes  supreme.  The  teacher  now 
withdraws  still  farther  into  the  background,  and 
leaves  the  student  with  his  subject  to  work  out 
his  own  salvation.  If  he  succeeds,  that  is  his  own 
affair ;  if  he  fails,  the  responsibility  rests  with 
him  alone.  Sometimes  this  highest  appeal  works 
miracles  where  lower  appeals  have  proved  in 
39 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

vain.  Boys  who  have  been  listless  in  the  lower 
schools,  lazy  in  the  high  school,  indifferent  or 
worse  in  college,  sometimes  wake  up  into  eager 
and  earnest  intellectual  life,  when  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  compelling  power  of  some  great 
department  of  truth,  and  the  serious  responsi- 
bility of  some  great  profession. 

One  acquires  this  professional  spirit,  whether  a 
university  student  or  not,  whenever  he  passes  be- 
yond the  mere  repeating  of  what  books  or  other 
teachers  say,  and  comes  into  first-hand  contact 
with  a  subject,  —  reading  it  up;  thinking  it  out ; 
discovering  new  facts  about  it,  and  making  it  so 
completely  his  own,  or  rather  surrendering  him- 
self so  completely  to  it,  that  it  speaks  through 
him  and  therefore  gives  to  what  he  says  the  note 
of  authority.  No  man  is  a  scholar  as  long  as  his 
ideas  have  been  merely  heard  from  another,  and 
have  not  in  this  vital  way  been  made  his  own.  The 
test  which  the  university  imposes  is  a  thesis  which 
contains  an  original  contribution  to  the  sum  of 
human  knowledge. 

While  the  research  of  graduate  students,  es- 
pecially in  the  department  of  literature,  has  often 
40 


PROFESSIONAL  INTERESTS 

been  woefully  misdirected,  nevertheless,  the  test 
of  original  contribution  is  right  and  essential.  No  ^ 
man  is  a  scholar  until  he  has  dug  the  ore  of  truth  : 
with  his  own  hand,  out  of  the  exhaustless  mine  of  | 
fact,  and  put  the  stamp  of  his  individuality  upon  | 
it.  The  bit  of  truth  mined  may  be  small ;  but  the  t 
processes  of  mining  and  minting  are  essential  to 
the  rank  and  title  of  the  scholar :  and  the  only 
possible  proof  that  the  man  has  done  the  min-  I 
ing  is  the  product  he  brings  back. 

What  the  graduate  school  of  a  university  ought 
to  produce,  but  what  no  American  university 
to-day  is  producing,  or  even  intelligently  aiming 
to  produce,  is  the  Doctor  of  Philosophy.  To  be 
sure  every  year  scores  of  men  and  women  with  the 
letters  Ph.  D.  after  their  names  are  turned  loose 
on  much-to-be-pitied  classes  of  undergraduates. 
But  in  reality  they  are  not  Doctors  of  Philosophy 
—  men  and  women  with  vital  individual  apprecia- 
tion, fresh  personal  interpretation,  enthusiastic 
power  of  communication  of  those  portions  of  the 
world's  great  accumulated  treasures  which  have 
proved  a  joy  and  inspiration  to  themselves. 

On  the  contrary,  in  spite  of  the  misleading 
41 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

letters  after  their  names,  they  are  for  the  most 
part  mere  doctors  of  science — specialists  in  some 
narrow  field  of  remote  and  minute  research ;  not 
only  impotent  to  transmit  to  others,  but  incapa- 
ble of  grasping  for  themselves  the  broad,  human 
significance  of  the  departments  of  literature, 
history,  or  science  which  they  ''profess  **  to  re- 
present. 

Enough  research  to  acquire  its  methods  and 
appreciate  its  standards  is  doubtless  an  essential 
part  of  a  university  training.  But  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  proper  preparation  of  teachers  for 
school  and  college,  it  is  at  present  enormously 
overdone.  For  the  purposes  of  the  teacher  a  few 
ounces  of  appreciation  and  interpretation  of  the 
large  features  of  our  common  intellectual  heri- 
tage, are  worth  many  pounds  of  newly  discovered 
but  unimportant  information. 

The  teacher's  profession  is  the  taking  of  some 
portion  of  our  intellectual  inheritance,  and  passing 
it  on  to  the  coming  generation.  To  do  that  well, 
ne  must  know  how  his  subject  arose  and  developed 
into  its  present  form,  with  the  same  thoroughness 
that  the  physician  knows  his  anatomy,  the  lawyer 
42 


FIVE  TESTS  OF  THE  TEACHER 

his  precedents,  and  the  engineer  his  strength  of 
materials.  In  whatever  grade  a  teacher  serves,  this 
sense  of  having  some  grasp  of  the  subject,  or 
some  art  of  its  presentation,  which  he  has  worked 
out  for  himself  —  some  touch  of  the  university 
attitude,  in  other  words  —  is  essential  if  his  work 
is  to  rise  to  the  dignity  of  a  profession,  and  he  is 
to  have  in  it  the  professional  spirit. 

Five  Tests  of  the  Teacher 

Such  are  the  five  stages  of  education,  and  the 
five  corresponding  types  of  interest.  As  I  said  at 
the  outset,  the  correspondence  is  not  complete ; 
the  stages  overlap ;  every  school  has  some  students 
who  failed  to  learn  the  lessons  of  the  stages  below ; 
and  others  who  are  ready  to  learn  the  lessons 
of  the  stages  above. 

On  the  whole,  however,  these  five  types  of  in- 
terest develop  successively  in  the  educational 
system.  The  teacher  should  use  them  all.  The 
tests  of  a  good  teacher  are  five. 

First :  Is  my  interest  in  my  work  so  contagious 
that  my  pupils  catch  from  me  an  eager  interest  in 
what  we  are  doing  together }  Then  I  have  the 
43 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

primary  teacher's  quality,  essential  to  success 
there  and  everywhere. 

Second :  Is  my  work  thorough  and  resourceful, 
rather  than  superficial  and  conventional,  so  that 
the  brightness  of  my  industry  and  the  warmth 
of  my  encouragement  kindles  in  my  pupils  a  re- 
sponsive zeal  to  do  their  best,  cost  what  it  may  ? 
Then  I  have  the  grammar  school  teacher's  essen- 
tial quality,  without  which  no  one  can  teach  any- 
where aright. 

Third :  Do  I  get  at  the  individuality  of  my 
students,  so  that  each  one  is  different  to  me  from 
every  other,  and  I  am  something  no  other  person 
is  to  each  of  them  ?  Then  I  have  the  high  school 
teacher's  special  gift ;  and  shall  be  a  power  for 
good  all  through  my  students'  lives. 

Fourth :  Do  I  treat  them,  and  train  them  to 
treat  each  other,  never  as  mere  things,  or  means 
to  ends  ;  but  always  as  persons,  with  rights,  aims, 
interests,  aspirations,  which  I  heartily  respect 
and  sympathetically  share  ?  Then  I  have  the  col- 
lege quality ;  and  am  sure  to  be  popular  and  suc- 
cessful everywhere. 

Fifth :  Am  I  so  reverent  toward  fact,  so  obedi- 
44 


FIVE  TESTS  OF  THE  TEACHER 

ent  to  law,  that  through  me  fact  and  law  speak 
and  act  with  an  authority  which  my  students  in- 
stinctively recognize  and  implicitly  obey  ?  Then 
the  mantle  of  the  university,  and  a  double  por- 
tion of  the  professional  spirit  has  fallen  upon  me; 
and  wherever  I  teach,  the  problem  of  discipline 
for  the  most  part  will  solve  itself  through  the 
mutual  recognition  by  both  students  and  teacher 
of  a  Power  greater  than  either  and  higher  than 
alL 


PART  II 

THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 
OUT  OF  SCHOOL 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 
OUT  OF  SCHOOL 

The  Personality  of  the  Teacher 

Some  people  can  teach  school  and  other  people 
can't.  Some  teachers  have  good  order,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  as  soon  as  they  set  foot  in  a  school 
class-room.  Other  teachers  can  never  get  any- 
thing more  than  the  outward  semblance  of  deco- 
rum, try  as  hard  as  they  will ;  and  often  cannot 
get  even  that.  Some  teachers  the  scholars  all 
love.  Other  teachers  they  all  hate. 

Some  teachers  a  superintendent  or  president 
will  jump  at  the  chance  to  secure  after  a  five 
minutes'  interview.  Others,  equally  scholarly, 
equally  experienced,  equally  well  equipped  with 
formal  recommendations,  go  wandering  from 
agency  to  agency,  from  one  vacant  place  to  an- 
other, only  to  find  that  some  other  applicant  has 
secured  or  is  about  to  secure  the  coveted  posi- 
tion. 

For  twenty-five  years  I  have  had  to  employ 
49 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

teachers  every  year,  and  to  recommend  teachers 
to  others.  I  have  seen  many  succeed,  and  some 
fail.  But  I  have  never  seen  a  success  that  could 
be  accounted  for  by  scholarship  and  training 
alone.  I  have  never  seen  a  failure  that  I  could 
not  account  for  on  other  grounds.  What  is  it, 
then,  that  makes  one  teacher  popular,  success- 
ful, wanted  in  a  dozen  different  places  ;  and  an- 
other, equally  well  trained,  equally  experienced,  a 
dismal  failure  where  he  is,  and  wanted  nowhere 
else  ? 

The  one  word  that  covers  all  these  qualities  is 
personality ;  that  is  the  thing  all  wise  employers 
of  teachers  seek  to  secure  above  all  else.  In  col- 
leges for  men  in  New  England  it  is  absolutely 
imperative.  In  elementary  and  secondary  schools, 
in  colleges  in  other  sections  of  the  country,  a 
teacher  with  serious  defects  of  personality  may 
be  carried  along  by  the  momentum  of  the  sys- 
tem, and  the  tact  of  superintendents  and  presi- 
dents. But  in  a  men's  college  in  New  England  a 
professor  with  seriously  defective  personality  is 
simply  impossible.  The  boys  will  either  make 
him  over  into  a  decent  man  by  the  severest  kind 
50 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  TEACHER 

of  discipline,  or  else  they  will  turn  him  out.  I 
have  seen  them  do  both  more  than  once.  A  man 
who  is  egotistical,  insincere,  diplomatic,  mean, 
selfish,  untruthful,  cowardly,  unfair,  weak,  is  a 
person  whom  New  England  men  students  will 
not  tolerate  as  a  teacher.  No  amount  of  know- 
ledge and  reputation,  no  amount  of  backing  from 
the  administration,  can  save  him.  On  the  whole, 
I  am  glad  that  this  is  so.  It  makes  the  responsi- 
bility of  selecting  professors  tremendous.  But, 
on  the  whole,  it  secures  in  the  end  a  better  type 
of  man  for  college  professors  than  we  should  be 
likely  to  get  if  the  office  could  be  held  on  any 
easier  terms. 

Now,  personality  is  very  largely  a  matter  of 
heredity.  Some  people  are  born  large-natured ; 
other  people  are  born  small-souled.  The  former 
are  born  to  succeed ;  the  latter  are  born  to  fail 
in  any  work  in  which  personality  counts  for  so 
much  as  it  does  in  teaching.  People  with  these 
mean  natures  and  small  souls  never  ought  to  try 
to  teach.  They  ought  to  get  into  some  strictly 
mechanical  work  where  skilled  hands  count  for 
everything  and  warm  hearts  count  for  nothing. 
SI 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

Still,  personality,  though  largely  dependent 
on  heredity,  is  in  great  measure  capable  of  culti- 
vation. If  it  were  not,  it  would  be  useless  for 
me  to  talk  about  it  here.  Some  teachers  would 
be  foreordained  to  succeed,  others  foreordained 
to  fail;  and  nothing  but  the  process  of  natural 
selection  after  actual  experience  could  separate 
those  who  are  personally  fit  to  teach  from  those 
who  are  not,  and  never  can  be.  Our  personality 
is  largely  an  affair  of  our  own  making.  Those 
who  have  weak  points  may,  by  thoughtfulness 
and  resolution,  strengthen  them ;  and  those  who 
are  naturally  strong,  by  effort  may  grow  stronger 
still.  How  this  may  be  done  is  what  I  am  to 
try  to  tell.  Fortunately,  it  is  not  a  new  story, 
but  a  very  old  one,  at  which  the  world  has  been 
working  a  long  while.  To  our  problem  of  per- 
sonality the  world  has  found  five  answers :  the 
Epicurean,  the  Stoic,  the  Platonic,  the  Aristo- 
telian, and  the  Christian.  I  shall  present  these 
five  answers  in  order.  Some  of  you  will  doubt- 
less find  that  you  can  apply  one  of  these  princi- 
ples ;  others  will  find  another  principle  the  one 
of  which  they  stand  in  need.  I  shall  not  under- 
52 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  TEACHER 

take  to  make  all  that  I  say  consistent.  I  shall 
be  simply  the  mouthpiece  of  those  five  types  of 
personality ;  and  leave  the  reader  to  select  what 
he  needs,  and  reject  the  rest  as  unprofitable. 
These  five  answers  in  brief  are  as  follows  :  — 

The  Epicurean  says :  "  Take   into  your  life  j 
as  many  simple,  natural  pleasures  as  possible.' 
The  Stoic  says :   "  Keep  out  of  your  mind  all  | 
causes   of    anxiety  and  grief."    The   Platonist  | 
says:   "Lift  up  your  soul  above  the  dust  andj 
drudgery  of  daily  life,  into  the  pure  atmosphere  I 
of  the  perfect  and  the  good."  The  Aristoteliani 
says  :  "  Organize  your  life  by  clear  conception  | 
of  the  end  for  which  you  are  living,  seek  dili-| 
gently  all   means   that   further  this   end,  and| 
rigidly  exclude  all  that  would  hinder  it  or  dis- 
tract you  from  it."  The  Christian  says:  '*  En- 
large your  spirit  to  include  the  interests  and  aims 
of  all  the  persons  whom  your  life  in  any  way 
affects." 

Any  man  or  woman   of  average  hereditary 

gifts,  and  ordinary  scholarship  and  training,  who 

puts  these  five  principles  in  practice,  will  be  a 

popular,  effective,  happy,  and  successful  teacher. 

53 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

Any  teacher,  however  well  equipped  otherwise, 
who  neglects  any  one  of  these  principles  will,  to 
that  extent,  be  thereby  weakened,  crippled,  and 
disqualified  for  the  work  of  teaching.  Any  per- 
son who  should  be  found  defective  in  the  ma- 
jority of  these  five  requirements  would  be  unfit 
to  teach  at  all.  Let  us,  then,  take  them  in  order, 
and  test  ourselves  by  them.  First,  the  Epicurean. 

The  Epicurean:  Happiness 

The  Epicurean  gospel  is  summed  up  best  in 
Stevenson's  lines,  "  The  Celestial  Surgeon  "  :  — 
If  I  have  faltered  more  or  less 
In  my  great  task  of  happiness  ; 
If  I  have  moved  among  my  race 
And  shown  no  glorious  morning  face, 
If  beams  from  happy  human  eyes 
Have  moved  me  not ;  if  morning  skies, 
Books,  and  my  food,  and  summer  rain 
Knocked  on  my  sullen  heart  in  vain  — 
Lord,  thy  most  pointed  pleasure  take 
And  stab  my  spirit  broad  awake ; 
Or,  Lord,  if  too  obdurate  I, 
Choose  thou,  before  that  spirit  die, 
A  piercing  pain,  a  killing  sin, 
And  to  my  dead  heart  run  them  in. 

54 


THE  EPICUREAN:  HAPPINESS 

The  one  thing  in  which  the  teacher  on  no  ac- 
count must  fail  is  this  which  Stevenson  calls 
our  "great  task  of  happiness/'  The  world  is  a 
vast  reservoir  of  potential  pleasure.  It  is  our  first 


Dusiness  here,  so  says  the  Epicurean,  for  whom  I 
am  speaking  now,  to  get  at  all  costs,  save  that  of 
overbalancing  pain,  as  many  of  these  pleasures  as 
we  can.  Doubtless  you  will  say,  this  is  a  very 
low  ideal  of  life.  Well,  I  admit  that  there  are 
higher  ideals,  for  the  sake  of  which  this  ideal,  to 
a  considerable  extent,  must  be  sacrificed.  I  admit 
that  the  mother  with  a  sick  child,  the  scholar 
with  a  difficult  problem,  the  statesman  in  a 
political  campaign,  —  all  of  us,  in  fact,  —  ought 
to  have  higher  ideals,  and  sacrifice  thi-s  ideal  of 
pleasure  to  them.  But  you  cannot  sacrifice  it 
unless  in  the  first  place  you  have  it,  and  care 
very  much  for  it. 

If  we  grant  that  it  is  a  low  ideal,  it  is  all  the 
more  shameful  if  we  fall  below  it.  And  a  great 
many  teachers  fall  below  it,  and  enormously  di- 
minish their  usefulness  in  consequence.  What, 
then,  is  the  Epicurean  ideal  for  the  teacher.? 
Plenty  of  good  wholesome  food,  eaten  leisurely 
55 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

in  good  company  and  pleasant  surroundings.  No 
hurried  breakfasts  of  coffee  and  doughnuts ;  no 
snatched  lunches  or  dinners.  A  comfortable 
room  where  you  can  be  quiet  by  yourself  and  not 
have  to  talk  when  you  do  not  want  to.  Now,  in 
the  old  days  of  boarding  the  teacher  around, 
these  things,  perhaps,  were  not  possible.  But,  in 
the  long  run,  these  fundamentals  of  a  pleasant 
room  and  a  good  boarding-place  are  half  the 
battle  ;  and  before  accepting  a  position  a  teacher 
should  make  sure  that  these  fundamental  requi- 
sites can  be  had.  Don't  save  money  by  deny- 
ing yourselves  these  necessities  when  they  can 
be  had  ;  and  don't  stay  long  in  any  place  where 
they  cannot  be  had.  No  one  can  permanently  be 
a  good  teacher  without  a  background  of  restful 
quiet,  and  a  basis  of  wholesome  food.  Next  comes 
exercise  in  the  open  air.  How  many  hours  of 
every  day  do  you  spend  outdoors,  free  from  care, 
enjoying  the  sunlight,  the  fresh  air,  the  fields,  the 
flowers,  the  birds,  the  hills,  the  streams  ?  To  be 
sure,  there  are  vocations  which  do  not  permit 
this.  But  the  teacher,  shut  up  in  close  air  under 
high  nervous  tension  for  five  or  six  hours,  can 
56 


THE  EPICUREAN:  HAPPINESS 

and  must  offset  all  this  abnormality  by  at  least 
an  hour  or  two  of  every  school  day,  and  more  on 
Saturday  and  Sunday,  under  the  open  sky,  as 
care-free  and  light-hearted  as  the  birds  that  sing 
in  the  tree-tops.  Are  you  living  up  to  your  Epi- 
curean duties  in  this  respect  ? 

Of  course  you  have  games  you  are  fond  of  play- 
ing. A  teacher  who  works  at  such  exhausting 
and  narrowing  work  as  instructing  thirty  or  forty 
restless  children,  and  does  not  counteract  it  by 
plenty  of  play,  is  not  only  committing  slow  sui- 1 
cide,  but  he  is  stunting  and  dwarfing  his  nature  | 
so  that  every  year  will  find  him  personally  less  ) 
fit  to  teach  than  he  was  the  year  before.  With  * 
walking,  riding  the  bicycle,  driving,  golf,  tennis, 
croquet,  skating,  cards,  checkers,  billiards,  rowing, 
sailing,  hunting,  fishing,  and  the  endless  variety 
of  games  and  sports  available,   a  teacher  who 
does  not  do  a  lot  of  them  in  vacations,  and  a 
good  deal  of  them  on  half -holidays,  and  some  of 
them  almost  every  day,  is  falling  far  below  the 
Epicurean  standard  of  what  a  teacher  ought  to  do 
and   be.  Play  and  people  to  play  with  are   as 
necessary  for  a  teacher  as  prayer  for  a  preacher, 
57 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

or  votes  for  a  politician,  a  piano  for  a  musician, 
or  a  hammer  for  a  carpenter.  You  simply  cannot 
go  on  healthily,  happily,  hopefully,  without  it.  If 
I  should  learn  of  any  candidate  for  a  position  as 
professor  in  Bowdoin  College  that  he  did  and 
enjoyed  none  of  these  things,  though  he  should 
be  backed  by  the  highest  recommendations  the 
leading  universities  of  America  and  Europe  could 
bestow,  I  would  not  so  much  as  read  the  letters 
that  he  brought.  For,  however  great  he  might  be 
as  a  scholar,  I  should  know  in  advance  that  he 
would  be  a  failure  in  the  teaching  of  American 
youth.  There  are  probably  just  enough  exceptions 
to  this  rule  to  prove  its  truth.  But  even  those  ex- 
ceptions, so  far  as  I  can  think  of  them,  are  due  to 
invalidism,  for  which  the  individuals  at  present 
are  not  responsible.  Are  you  playing  as  much 
as  Epicurus  would  tell  you  that  you  ought  to 
play.^ 

Do  you  sleep  soundly,  as  long  as  nature  re- 
quires, never  letting  the  regrets  of  the  day  past 
nor  the  anxieties  of  the  day  to  come  encroach 
upon  these  precious  hours,  any  more  than  you 
would  that  greatest  of  abominations  —  the  alarm 
58 


THE  EPICUREAN:  HAPPINESS 

clock  ?  Do  you  lie  down  every  night  in  absolute 
restfulness,  and  thankfulness,  and  tranquillity? 
Do  you  live  in  care-proof,  worry-tight  compart- 
ments, so  that  the  little  annoyances  of  one  sec- 
tion of  your  life  are  never  allowed  to  spill  over 
and  spoil  the  other  sections  of  your  life?  In 
short,  to  quote  one  who  is  our  most  genial  mod- 
ern apostle  of  Epicureanism,  do  you  recognize 
and  arrange  your  life  according  to  the  principle 
that  — 

The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things 
I  'm  sure  we  should  all  be  as  happy  as  kings  ? 

Have  you  friends  with  whom  you  spend  de- 
lightful hours  in  unrestrained  companionship? 
Have  you  books  which  you  read  for  the  pure  fun 
of  it  ?  Do  you  go  to  concerts  and  entertainments 
and  plays  as  often  as  you  can  afford  the  time  and 
money?  Take  it  altogether,  are  you  having  a 
good  time,  or,  if  not,  are  you  resorting  to  every 
available  means  of  getting  one  ?  Then,  not  other- 
wise, will  you  pass  this  first  examination  as  to 
your  personal  fitness  to  be  a  teacher.  None  of  us 
are  perfect  on  this  point.  None  of  us  are  having 
nearly  so  good  a  tinieaswemight.  But  we  ought 
59 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

to  fall  somewhere  above  seventy  or  eighty  on  a 
scale  of  a  hundred  on  this  fundamental  question. 
Let  us  hereafter  mark  ourselves  as  rigidly  on  this 
subject  as  we  do  our  scholars  in  arithmetic  and 
geography.  They  are  marking  us  all  the  time  on 
this  very  point ;  only  they  do  not  call  it  Epicu- 
reanism, or  record  the  result  in  figures.  They 
register  it  in  slangy  terms  of  their  own  likes 
and  dislikes. 

The  Stoic:  Fortitude 

Second.  Be  a  Stoic,  which  means  keep  your 
mind  free  from  all  worry,  anxiety,  and  grief.  You 
say,  "That  is  impossible.  The  world  is  full  of 
evils  and  we  can't  help  worrying  about  them  and 
being  depressed  by  them."  "Yes,  you  can,"  the 
Stoic  tells  us ;  for  things  out  there  in  the  exter- 
nal world  never  trouble  us.  It  is  only  when  they 
get  into  our  minds  that  they  hurt ;  and  whether 
they  shall  be  let  into  our  minds  depends  entirely 
on  ourselves.  You  make  a  mistake  on  Monday 
morning.  That  is  an  external  fact  to  be  acknow- 
ledged and  corrected  as  promptly  as  possible.  If 
it  makes  you  nervous  all  Monday  afternoon,  and 
60 


THE  STOIC:  FORTITUDE 

takes  away  your  appetite  Monday  evening,  and 
keeps  you  awake  Monday  night,  and  starts  you 
out  on  Tuesday  morning  enfeebled,  distrustful, 
and  consequently  ten  times  as  likely  to  make 
mistakes  as  you  were  the  day  before,  that  is  en- 
tirely your  own  affair  and,  if  it  happens,  your  own 
fault.  You  have  allowed  that  external  fact  that 
ought  to  have  been  left  in  the  outside  world, 
where  it  belongs,  to  come  in  and  take  possession 
of  your  mind  and  drive  out  your  normal  mental, 
emotional,  and  physiological  processes. 

Stoicism  is  fundamentally  the  doctrine  of  ap- 
perception applied  to  our  emotional  states.  Stoi- 
cism says  that  our  mental  states  are  what  we  are, 
that  no  external  thing  can  determine  our  mental 
state  until  we  have  woven  it  into  the  structure 
of  our  thought  and  painted  it  with  the  color  of 
our  dominant  mood  and  temper.  Thus,  every 
mental  state  is  for  the  most  part  of  our  own  mak- 
ing. Of  course  this  Stoic  doctrine  is  somewhat 
akin  to  the  doctrine  of  Christian  Science.  Yet 
there  is  a  decided  difference.  Christian  Science 
and  kindred  popular  cults  deny  the  external 
physical  fact  altogether.  Stoicism  admits  the 
6i 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

reality  and  then  makes  the  best  of  it.  For  in- 
stance, the  Christian  Scientist  with  the  tooth- 
ache says  there  is  no  matter  there  to  ache.  The 
Stoic,  both  truer  to  the  facts  and  braver  in  spirit, 
says  there  is  matter,  but  it  doesn't  matter  if 
"there  is.  Stoicism  teaches  us  that  the  mental 
states  are  the  man  ;  that  external  things  never, 
in  themselves,  constitute  a  mental  state ;  that  the 
all-important  contribution  is  made  by  the  mind 
itself;  that  this  contribution  from  the  mind  is 
what  gives  the  tone  and  determines  the  worth  of 
the  total  mental  state,  and  that  this  contribution 
is  exclusively  our  own  affair  and  may  be  brought 
entirely  under  our  own  control.  As  Epictetus 
says,  "Everything  has  two  handles, — one  by 
which  it  may  be  borne,  another  by  which  it  can- 
not. If  your  brother  acts  unjustly  do  not  lay  hold 
of  the  affair  by  the  handle  of  his  injustice,  for  by 
that  it  cannot  be  borne;  but  rather  by  the  op- 
posite,— that  he  is  your  brother;  that  he  was 
brought  up  with  you ;  and  thus  you  will  lay  hold 
on  it  as  it  is  to  be  borne.*'  Again,  he  says  men 
are  disappointed  **  not  by  things,  but  by  the  view 
which  they  take  of  things.  When,  therefore,  we 
62 


THE  STOIC:  FORTITUDE 

are  hindered,  or  disappointed,  or  grieved,  let  us 
never  impute  it  to  others,  but  to  ourselves,  that 
is,  to  our  views/'  All  this,  you  see,  is  the  funda- 
mental principle  that  the  only  things  that  enter 
into  us  and  affect  our  states  of  thought,  and  will, 
and  feeling  are  things  as  we  think  about  them, 
forces  as  we  react  upon  them ;  and  these  thoughts, 
feelings,  and  reactions  are  our  own  affairs,  and, 
consequently,  if  they  are  not  serene,  tranquil,  and 
happy,  the  fault  is  in  ourselves. 

Now,  we  can  all  reduce  enormously  our  trou- 
bles and  vexations  by  bringing  to  bear  upon  them 
this  Stoic  formula.  There  is  a  way  of  looking  at 
our  poverty,  our  plainness  of  feature,  our  lack  of 
mental  brilliance,  our  unpopularity,  our  mistakes, 
our  physical  ailments,  that  will  make  us  modest, 
contented,  cheerful,  and  serene.  The  blunders 
we  make,  the  foolish  things  we  do,  the  hasty 
words  we  say,  though  they,  in  a  sense,  have  gone 
out  from  us,  yet  once  committed  in  the  external 
world  they  should  be  left  there ;  they  should  not 
be  brought  back  into  the  mind  to  be  brooded 
over  and  become  centres  of  depression  and  dis- 
couragement.  Stoicism  teaches  us  to  shift  the 

63 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

emphasis  from  dead  external  facts  beyond  our 
control  to  the  live  option  which  always  presents 
itself  within.  It  tells  us  that  the  circumstance 
or  failure  that  can  make  us  miserable  does  not 
exist  unless  it  exists  by  our  consent  within  our 
own  minds.  To  consider  not  what  happens  to  us 
but  how  we  take  it;  to  measure  good  in  terms 
not  of  sensuous  pleasure  but  of  mental  attitude ; 
to  know  that  if  we  are  for  the  universal  law  of 
right,  it  matters  not  how  many  things  may  be 
against  us ;  to  rest  assured  that  there  can  be  no 
circumstance  or  condition  in  which  this  great  law 
cannot  be  done  by  us  and,  therefore,  no  situation 
of  which  we  cannot  be  more  than  masters  through 
obedience  to  the  great  law  that  governs  all, — 
this  is  the  stern  and  lofty  law  of  Stoicism. 

Carried  too  far,  Stoicism  becomes  hard,  cold, 
proud,  and,  like  its  popular  cults  of  to-day, 
grotesque.  But  there  is  a  healing  virtue  in  its 
stern  formula  after  all ;  and  when  things  do  not 
go  as  we  should  like,  when  people  maltreat  us 
and  find  fault  with  us,  when  we  meet  our  own 
limitations  and  shortcomings,  it  is  good  for  us  to 
know  that  these  external  facts  have  no  more 

64 


THE  PLATONIC:  SERENITY 

power  to  worry  us  and  depress  us  and  unfit  us 
for  our  work  than  we  choose  to  let  them  have. 

A  teacher's  life  is  probably  more  full  of  con- 
scious failure,  personal  collision,  severe  criti- 
cism, and  general  discouragement  than  almost 
any  profession.  The  ends  at  which  the  teacher 
aims  are  vast  and  indefinite,  the  material  is  per- 
verse and  recalcitrant,  the  resources  available 
are  often  meagre,  and  the  outcome  is  always  far 
below  what  one  would  wish/ But  the  Stoic  for- 
mula, faithfully  applied,  will  help  us  frankly  to 
recognize  these  facts  and  at  the  same  time  to 
overcome  them.  We  shall  save  ourselves  many 
a  troubled  day  and  sleepless  night  if  we  learn  to 
bring  this  Stoic  formula  to  bear  whenever  these 
evils  incidental  to  our  arduous  profession  press 
too  heavily  upon  us. 

The  Platonic :  Serenity 

The  third  of  the  world^s  great  devices  for  the 
development  of  personality  is  Platonism.  The 
Epicurean  tells  us  to  take  in  all  the  pleasure  we 
can  get.  The  Stoic  shows  us  how  to  keep  out  grief 
and  pain.  But  it  is  a  constant  strife  and  struggle 
65 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

in  either  case.  The  Platonist  bids  us  rise  above 
it  all.  "The  world,"  says  the  Platonist,  "is  very 
imperfect,  almost  as  bad  as  the  Stoic  makes  it 
out."  We  must  live  in  this  imperfect  world  after 
a  fashion  and  make  the  best  of  it  while  it  lasts. 
This,  however,  he  tells  us,  is  not  the  real  world. 
Individual  people  and  particular  things  are  but 
imperfect,  faulty,  distorted  copies  of  the  true 
pattern  of  the  good  which  is  laid  up  in  heaven. 
We  must  buy  and  sell,  work  and  play,  eat  and 
drink,  laugh  and  cry,  love  and  hate  down  here 
among  the  earthly  shades ;  but  our  real  conversa- 
tion all  the  time  may  be  in  heaven  with  the  per- 
fectly good  and  true  and  beautiful.  This  doctrine, 
you  see,  is  very  closely  akin  to  much  of  the  popu- 
lar philosophy  which  is  gaining  so  many  adher- 
ents in  our  day.  A  little  of  it  is  a  good  thing,  but 
to  feed  on  it  exclusively  or  regard  it  as  the  final 
gospel  is  very  dangerous.  These  Platonists  go 
through  the  world  with  a  serene  smile  and  an 
air  of  other-worldliness  we  cannot  but  admire ; 
they  are  seen  to  most  advantage,  however,  from 
a  little  distance.  They  are  not  the  most  agreeable 
to  live  with ;  it  is  a  great  misfortune  to  be  tied  to 
66 


THE  PLATONIC:  SERENITY 

one  of  them  as  husband  or  wife,  college  or  busi- 
ness partner.  Louisa  Alcott  had  this  type  in  mind 
when  she  defined  a  philosopher  as  a  man  up  in  a 
balloon  with  his  family  and  friends  having  hold 
of  the  rope  trying  to  pull  him  down  to  earth. 
Pretty  much  all  of  the  philosophy  of  Christian 
Science,  and  a  great  deal  that  passes  for  Chris- 
tian religion,  is  simply  Platonism  masquerading 
in  disguise.  All  such  hymns  as  *'  Sweet  By-and- 
By,"  "O  Paradise,  O  Paradise,"  and  the  like 
are  simply  Platonic.  Thomas  a  Kempis  gives 
us  Platonism  in  the  form  of  mediaeval  Christian 
mysticism.  Emerson  has  a  large  element  of  Pla- 
tonism in  all  his  deeper  passages.  In  all  its  forms 
you  get  the  same  dualism  of  finite  and  infin- 
ite, perfect  and  imperfect ;  unworthy,  crumbling 
earth-mask  to  be  gotten  rid  of  here  on  earth,  and 
the  stars  to  be  sought  out  and  gazed  at  up  in 
heaven. 

It  is  easy  to  ridicule  and  caricature  this  type 
of  personality.  Yet  the  world  would  be  much  the 
poorer  if  the  Platonists  and  the  mystics  were 
withdrawn.  The  man  or  woman  who  at  some 
time  or  other  does  not  feel  the  spell  or  charm  of 

67 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

this  mood  will  miss  one  of  the  nobler  experiences 
of  life. 

In  spite  of  this  warning  against  Platonism 
accepted  as  a  finished  gospel,  it  contains  truth 
which  every  teacher  ought  to  know  and  on  occa- 
sion to  apply.  When  one  is  walking  through  the 
forest  and  knows  not  which  way  to  go,  it  is  a 
gain  sometimes  to  climb  a  tree  and  take  a  look 
over  the  tops  of  the  surrounding  trees.  The 
climbing  does  not  directly  help  you  on  your 
journey,  and,  of  course,  if  you  stay  in  the  tree- 
top  you  will  never  reach  your  destination ;  but  it 
does  give  you  your  bearings  and  insures  that  the 
next  stage  of  your  journey  will  be  in  the  right 
direction.  Now  the  teacher  lives  in  a  wilderness 
of  dreary  and  monotonous  details  which  shut  out 
the  larger  horizon  as  completely  as  the  trees  of 
the  forest.  Every  teacher  ought,  now  and  then, 
to  climb  the  tall  tree,  or  to  leave  the  figure,  to  go 
away  by  himself  and  look  at  his  life  as  a  whoje. 
"a  traveler  in  a  Southern  forest  found  an  aged 
negro  sitting  with  his  banjo  under  a  tree  ten 
miles  from  the  nearest  settlement.  In  his  sur- 
prise, he  asked  the  negro  what  he  was  doing  off 
6S 


THE  PLATONIC:  SERENITY 

there  so  far  in  the  wilderness  alone,  and  he  re- 
plied, **I'm  just  serenading  my  own  soul."  Pla- 
tonism  teaches  us  to  get  out  of  the  bustle  and 
tangle  of  life  once  in  a  while  and  serenade  our 
own  souls.  We  need,  at  times,  to  look  at  our- 
selves in  the  large,  to  make  clear  to  ourselves  the 
great  purpose  for  which  we  are  living,  and  the 
ideal  of  character  toward  which  we  aspire.  We 
need  to  commune  with  the  better  self  that  we 
hope  to  be  and  take  our  bearings  anew  for  the 
immediate  journey  before  us.  Most  people  get 
this  Platonic  refuge  in  religion ;  some  get  it  in 
music,  some  in  art,  some  in  intimate  personal 
friendships.  In  some  way  or  other  every  teacher 
should  have  some  sphere  of  life  apart  from  the 
daily  routine  in  which  he  can  dwell  undisturbed 
and  find  everything  serene,  perfect,  and  complete. 
When  one  comes  down,  as  come  down  one  must, 
from  these  mounts  of  transfiguration,  or,  to  use 
Plato's  figure,  "  when  one  returns  from  the  sun- 
light back  into  the  cave,"  when  one  takes  up  again 
the  duty  and  drudgery  of  life,  though  at  first  it 
will  seem  more  impossible  and  irksome  than  ever, 
yet  in  the  long  run  he  will  find  a  cheerfulness  and 

69 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

serenity  in  the  doing  of  these  hard,  homely  duties 
which  he  never  could  have  gained  unless  for  these 
brief  periods  he  had  gone  up  into  the  summits 
where  he  sees  the  world  as  a  whole  bathed  in 
unclouded  sunshine.  A  teacher  will  hardly  be 
able  to  keep  his  poise,  his  temper,  and  his  cheer- 
ful outlook  upon  life  without  the  aid  in  some  form 
or  other  of  these  Platonic  resources.  Yet  I  must 
conclude  this  word  about  Plato,  as  I  began,  with  a 
warning.  It  must  be  taken  in  moderate  doses, 
and  every  added  outlook  and  emotion  derived 
from  Platonic  sources  must  be  followed  imme- 
diately by  prompt  and  vigorous  attention  to  the 
duties  that  await  us  at  the  foot  of  the  mount. 
The  mere  Platonist  who  is  that  and  nothing 
more,  whether  he  call  himself  mystic,  monastic, 
Catholic,  Evangelical,  Protestant,  Theosophist, 
or  Christian  Scientist,  must  remember  that, 
though  he  draw  his  inspiration  from  above  the 
clouds,  the  real  tests  of  life  are  found  on  the 
solid  earth  beneath  his  feet.  The  Platonist  of 
all  these  types  should  take  to  heart  the  lesson 
conveyed  in  Stevenson's  "Our  Lady  of  the 
Snows. " 

70 


THE  PLATONIC:  SERENITY 

And  ye,  O  brethren,  what  if  God, 
When  from  heav'n's  top  he  spies  abroad, 
And  sees  on  this  tormented  stage 
The  noble  war  of  mankind  rage. 
What  if  His  vivifying  eye, 
O  monks,  should  pass  your  corner  by  ? 
For  still  the  Lord  is  Lord  of  might. 
In  deeds,  in  deeds  he  takes  delight ; 
The  plough,  the  spear,  the  laden  barks, 
The  field,  the  founded  city,  marks ; 
He  marks  the  smiler  of  the  streets, 
The  singer  upon  garden  seats ; 
He  sees  the  climber  in  the  rocks ; 
To  Him,  the  shepherd  folds  his  flocks. 

For  those  He  loves  that  underprop 
With  daily  virtues  heaven's  top, 
And  bear  the  falling  sky  with  ease, 
Unfrowning  caryatides ; 
Those  He  approves  that  ply  the  trade. 
That  rock  the  child,  that  wed  the  maid, 
That  with  weak  virtues,  weaker  hands, 
Sow  gladness  on  the  peopled  lands. 
And  still  with  laughter,  song,  and  shout, 
Spin  the  great  wheel  of  the  earth  about. 
But  ye  ?  O  ye  who  linger  still 
Here  in  your  fortress  on  the  hill, 
With  placid  face,  with  tranquil  breath, 

71 


I 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

The  unsought  volunteers  of  death, 

Our  cheerful  General  on  high 

With  careless  looks  may  pass  you  by. 

The  Aristotelian:  Proportion 

The  fourth  great  lesson  of  personality  was 
taught  the  world  by  Aristotle.  According  to 
Aristotle,  man  is  to  find  his  end,  not  in  heaven 
in  the  hereafter,  but  here  and  now  upon  the 
earth.  The  end  is  not  something  to  be  gained  by 
indulgence  of  appetite  with  the  Epicurean,  by 
superiority  to  passion  with  the  Stoic,  by  solitary 
elevation  of  soul  with  the  Platonist ;  the  end  is 
to  be  wrought  out  of  the  very  stuff  of  which  the 
hard  world  around  us  is  made.  From  the  Aristo-" 


telian  point  of  view  nothing  is  good  in  itself;  noth- 
ing is  bad  in  itself.  The  goodness  of  good  things 
depends  upon  the  good  use  to  which  we  put  them, 
and  the  badness  of  bad  things  depends  likewise 
on  the  bad  use  to  which  we  put  them. 

From  this  point  of  view  personality  depends 
on  the  sense  of  proportion.    This  sense  of  pro- 
portion is  the  most  essential  part  of  a  teacher's 
equipment.  Every  teacher  has  opportunity  to  do 
72 


THE  ARISTOTELIAN:  PROPORTION 

'  twenty  times  as  much  as  he  is  able  to  do  well.  ] 
The  important  thing  is  to  know  which  twentieth  I 
to  do  and  which  nineteen  twentieths  to  leavel 
undone.    Between  mastery  of   subjects  taught,  i 
general  reading,  professional  study,  exercise,  re-  * 
creation,  social  engagements,  personal  work  with  ^ 
individual  scholars,  private  affairs,  correspond- 
ence, the  regular  work  of  the  classroom,  the  cor- 
recting of  papers,  preparation  of  particular  lessons, 
church,  clubs,  there  is  obviously  far  more  draft  on  I 
the  teacher's  time  and  strength  than  can  be  met  | 
f  with  safety.  Teaching  is  an  extra-hazardous  pro- 
fession, so  far  at  any  rate  as  the  nervous  system 
is  concerned.  Into  each  of  several  of  these  lines 
one  might  put  his  whole  energy  and  still  leave 
much  to  be  accomplished.  The  teacher's  problem, 
then,  is  one  of  proportion  and  selection,  to  know 
what  to  slight  and  what  to  emphasize.  The  ele- 
ments that  enter  into  the  problem  are  different 
in  each  person.  Consequently,  no  general  rules 
can  be  laid  down.  The  teacher  should   have  a 
pretty  clear  idea  of  what  he  means  to  do  and  be. 
That  which  is  essential  to  this  main  end  should 
be  accepted  at  all  costs ;  that  which  hinders  it 
73 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

should  be  rejected  at  all  costs.  When  the  choice 
is  between  things  which  help  it  more  and  help  it 
less,  those  which  help  it  more  should  be  taken, 
and  those  which  help  it  less  should  be  rejected. 
The  teacher  should  learn  to  say  "No!"  to  calls 
which  are  good  in  themselves,  but  are  not  good 
for  him.  For  instance,  amateur  theatricals  are 
good  in  themselves ;  but  no  teacher  who  is 
teaching  five  or  six  hours  a  day  can  afford  to 
give  three  or  four  evenings  a  week  to  lengthy 
rehearsals.  Church  fairs  are  good  in  themselves, 
but  the  wise  teacher  will  leave  the  management 
of  such  things  to  persons  who  have  much  more 
leisure.  Church  attendance  on  Sunday  is  a  good 
thing  in  itself,  but  one  service  a  day  is  as  much 
as  the  average  teacher  can  attend  who  would  do 
his  best  the  five  working  days  of  the  week.  Sun- 
day-school teaching  is  an  excellent  thing  in  it- 
self, but  as  a  rule  it  is  the  one  thing  above  all 
others  from  which  the  conscientious  public-school 
teacher  will  most  rigidly  refrain.  For  Sunday- 
school  teaching  puts  the  teacher  on  what  should 
I  be  the  chief  day  of  rest  into  precisely  the  same 
I  state  of  nervous  tension  that  must  be  maintained 

74 


THE  ARISTOTELIAN:  PROPORTION 

during  the  greater  part  of  the  week.  Sunday- 1 
school  teaching  for  a  public-school  teacher  is  very- 
much  the  same  misuse  of  Sunday  that  taking  in 
a  big  Sunday  washing  would  be  for  a  washer- 
woman who  had  washings  to  do  on  all  the  other 
six  days  of  the  week.  Making  out  absolutely  ac- 
curate rank  and  reading  carefully  all  the  written^ 
work  of  a  large  class  of  pupils  is  a  good  thing  in 
itself;  but  wise  superintendents  will  save  their 
teachers  as  much  of  that  work  as  possible,  and 
teachers  themselves  will  understand  that  if  any- 
thing is  to  be  shirked  this  is  the  best  place  to 
economize  nervous  force.  Of  course,  if  it  is  done 
at  all,  it  must  be  done  honestly.  But  the  differ- 
ence between  rapid  glancing  and  quick  final  judg- 
ment in  such  matters,  and  minute  perusing  and 
prolonged  deliberation  in  each  case  is  of  little  ad- 
vantage to  the  pupils  in  the  long  run,  and  is  often 
bought  at  excessive  cost  of  vitality  and  strength 
of  the  teacher.  Emphasize  essentials,  slight  non- 
essentials. Do  the  thing  that  counts.  Leave  things 
that  do  not  count  undone  or  get  them  done 
quickly.  Remember  that  physical  health,  mental 
elasticity,  and  freshness  and  vivacity  of  spirits 
75 


THE  TEACHER'S   PHILOSOPHY 

must  be  maintained  at  all  costs  in  the  interests 
of  the  school  and  the  scholars  no  less  than  as  a 
matter  of  imperative  self-preservation.  The  wise 
teacher  will  say  to  himself,  ''  I  must  know  the 
lessons  I  teach."  *'I  must  do  some  reading  out- 
side." **1  must  take  an  interest  in  my  individual 
scholars."  **  I  must  keep  myself  strong  and  happy 
and  well."  "These  are  essential,  and  for  the  sake 
of  these  things  I  stand  ready  to  sacrifice  all  mere 
red  tape."  "I  stand  ready  to  be  misunderstood 
by  good  people  who  know  nothing  of  the  strain 
I  am  under."  "I  stand  ready  even  to  shirk  and 
to  slight  minor  matters  when  it  is  necessary  to 
do  so  in  order  to  do  the  main  things  well."  In 
the  great  name  of  Aristotle,  then,  resolve  to  ob- 
serve and  apply  this  fundamental  sense  of  pro- 
portion. Be  sure  that  what  you  do  is  right  for 
you,  under  the  circumstances  in  which  you  are 
placed,  with  the  definite  obligations  that  are  laid 
upon  you.  Never  mind  if  you  do  not  do  every- 
thing that  other  people  expect  you  to  do ;  if  you 
do  not  do  things  which,  though  good  in  them- 
selves and  right  for  other  people  to  do,  in  your 
specific  situation  for  you  would   be  wrong.    In 

76 


THE  CHRISTIAN:  DEVOTION 

other  words,  have  your  own  individual  ends  per- 
fectly clear,  and  accept  or  reject  the  various  calls 
that  come  to  you  according  as  they  further  or 
hinder  these  clearly  grasped  individual  aims. 

The  Christian :  Devotion 

Now,  we  have  four  bits  of  advice  from  four 
of  the  world's  greatest  teachers.  There  remains 
the  counsel  of  the  greatest  teacher  of  all.  Christ 
says  to  the  teacher,  f^Makethe  interests  and  aims 
ofeach  one  of  your  scholars  your  own.  Whether 
a  teacher  is  a  Christian  in  the  profoundest  sense 
of  the  term  depends  not  in  the  least  on  whether 
he  is  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant,  a  Conservative 
or  a  Liberal.  It  depends  on  whether  the  teacher 
has  his  own  point  of  view,  his  personal  interests, 
and  then  regards  the  scholars  as  alien  beings  to 
be  dealt  with  as  the  rules  of  the  school  may  re- 
quire and  as  his  own  personal  interest  and  repu- 
tation may  suggest;  or  whether  in  sympathy 
and  generous  interest  he  makes  the  life  and 
problems  of  each  scholar  a  genuine  part  of  the 
problem  of  his  own  enlarged  nature  and  generous 
heart.  The  greatest  difference  between  teachers, 
77 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

after  all,  is  that  in  this  deepest  sense  some  teach- 
ers are  Christians  and  some  teachers  are  not. 
The  teacher  who  is  not  a  Christian  according  to 
this  definition  will  work  for  reputation  and  pay, 
— will  teach  what  is  required  and  rule  the  school 
by  sheer  authority  and  force.  Between  teacher 
and  scholar  a  great  gulf  will  be  fixed ;  the  only 
bridges  across  that  gulf  will  be  authority  and 
constraint  on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  fear  and 
self-interest  on  the  part  of  the  pupils.  Such  a 
teacher  will  set  tasks  and  compel  the  scholars 
to  do  them.  Here  such  a  teacher's  responsibility 
will  end. 

Precisely  here,  where  the  unchristian  teacher's 
work  ends,  is  where  the  Christian  teacher's  best 
work  begins.  Instead  of  imposing  a  task  on  the 
scholars,  the  Christian  teacher  sets  before  schol- 
ars and  teacher  alike  a  task  which  they  together 
must  do ;  the  teacher  is  to  help  each  scholar  to 
do  it  and  each  scholar  is  to  help  the  teacher  to 
get  this  task  done.  It  is  a  common  work  in  which 
they  are  engaged.  If  they  succeed  it  is  a  common 
satisfaction ;  if  any  individual  fails  it  is  a  com- 
mon sorrow.  The  Christian  teacher  will  be  just 

78 


THE  CHRISTIAN:  DEVOTION 

as  rigid  in  his  requirements  as  the  unchristian 
teacher,  but  the  attitude  toward  the  scholars  is 
entirely  different.  The  unchristian  teacher  says 
to  the  scholars,  "  Go  and  do  that  work :  I  shall 
mark  you  and  punish  you  if  you  fail."  The  Chris- 
tian teacher  says,  *'Come,  let  us  do  this  work 
together;  I  am  ready  to  help  you  in  every  way  I 
can,  and  I  want  each  of  you  to  help  me."  The 
Christian  teacher  looks  forward  to  each  pupil's 
future,  and  enters  sympathetically  into  the  plans 
which  the  child  has  for  himself  and  his  parents 
have  for  him. 

Now  undoubtedly  this  Christian  attitude  to- 
ward each  scholar  is  pretty  expensive  of  the  teach- 
er's time  and  strength.  Doubtless,  hitherto  you 
have  thought  me  very  selfish,  hard-hearted,  and 
parsimonious  in  the  counsel  I  have  been  giving. 
I  have  told  you  in  the  name  of  Epicurus  to  get 
all  the  pleasure  you  can ;  in  the  name  of  the 
Stoics  to  shut  out  all  superfluous  griefs  and  worry ; 
in  the  name  of  Plato  to  get  above  petty  details 
and  live  a  life  of  your  own,  apart  from  mere  hum- 
drum routine ;  in  the  name  of  Aristotle  to  develop 
a  sense  of  proportion,  to  shirk  and  slight  and  ex- 
79 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

elude  a  thousand  distractions  that  are  well  enough 
for  other  people,  but  which  you  cannot  afford. 
But  in  giving  all  this  selfish,  hard-hearted,  coolly 
calculated  advice,  I  have  asked  you  to  save  your- 
selves for  this  Christian  work,  which  is  the  best 
worth  while  of  all.  Pour  yourselves  unreservedly, 
without  stint  or  measure,  into  the  lives  of  your 
scholars.  See  things  through  their  eyes ;  feel 
keenly  their  joys  and  griefs.  Be  sure  that  you 
share  in  sympathy  and  helpfulness  every  task 
you  lay  upon  them ;  that  you  rejoice  in  every 
success  they  achieve,  and  that  you  are  even  more 
sorry  than  they  for  every  failure  they  make.  Be 
a  leader,  not  a  driver,  of  your  flock :  for  to  lead 
is  Christ-like,  to  drive  is  unchristian.  The  differ- 
ence, you  see,  between  the  teacher  who  is  a  Chris- 
tian and  the  one  who  is  not,  is  not  a  difference 
of  doctrine  or  ritual  or  verbal  profession.  It  is  a 
difference  in  the  tone,  temper,  and  spirit,  of  the 
teacher's  attitude  toward  the  scholars.^ It  is  a 
hard  thing  to  define,  but  it  is  something  an  ex- 
perienced person  can  feel  before  he  has  been  in 
a  class-room  five  minutes.  In  one  class-room  you 
feel  the  tension  of  alien  and  antagonistic  forces, 
80 


FIVE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PERSONALITY 

—  the  will  of  the  teacher  arrayed  against  the  will 
of  the  scholars,  and,  as  an  inevitable  consequence, 
the  will  of  the  scholars  in  latent  antagonism  to 
the  will  of  the  teacher.  In  another  class-room 
there  is  tension,  to  be  sure,  as  there  ought  to 
be,  but  it  is  the  tension  of  one  strong,  friendly, 
united  will  of  teacher  and  scholar  directed  against 
their  great  common  tasks.  The  Christian  spirit^ 
alone,  without  sufficient  mental  equipment  andj 
force  of  will,  will  not  teach  school  any  more  thanj 


ffwill  manage  a  factory  or  win  a  game  of  football 
without  technical  training  and  equipment.  All 
this,  however,  I  am  taking  for  granted.  Assum- 
ing these  general  qualifications,  it  may  be  safely 
said  that  every  teacher  who  combines  the  five  qual- 
ities we  have  been  describing  will  find  teaching  a 
perpetual  joy  and  will  achieve  a  brilliant  success. 

Five  Principles  of  Personality 

Such  are  the  five  principles  of  personality  as 
the  world's  great  teachers  have  developed  them 
and  as  they  apply  specifically  to  the  work  of  the 
teacher.  Show  me  any  teacher  of  sufficient  men- 
tal training  and  qualifications  who  is  unpopular, 
8x 


THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 

ineffective,  unhappy,  and  I  will  guarantee  that 
this  teacher  has  violated  one  or  more  of  these 
five  principles  of  personality ;  either  he  has  ne- 
glected diet,  exercise,  rest,  and  recreation,  and 
failed  to  have  a  good  time  ;  or  else  he  has  wasted 
his  nervous  substance  in  riotous  worry,  and  spent 
the  energy  needed  to  make  things  go  right  to- 
day in  regretting  what  went  wrong  yesterday  or 
anticipating  what  may  go  wrong  to-morrow;  or 
else  he  has  no  life  of  his  own  outside  of  the  school 
and  above  it,  from  which  he  comes  down  clothed 
with  fresh  inspiration  and  courage  to  meet  the 
duties  and  details  of  each  new  school  day ;  or  else 
he  has  missed  the  great  sense  of  proportion,  and 
squandered  the  energies  which  should  have  been 
devoted  to  the  few  things  that  are  needful,  on  a 
variety  of  burdens  which  the  importunity  of  others 
or  the  false  conscientiousness  of  himself  had  laid 
upon  him ;  or  else,  and  this  is  by  far  the  most 
common  and  serious  cause,  he  has  failed  to 
merge  his  own  life  in  the  lives  of  the  scholars, 
so  that  they  have  felt  him  a  helper,  a  leader,  a 
friend  in  the  solving  of  their  individual  problems 
and  the  accomplishment  of  their  common  work 

82 


FIVE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PERSONALITY 

On  the  other  hand,  I  will  guarantee  perfect  per- 
sonal success  to  any  well-trained  teacher  who  will 
faithfully  incorporate  these  five  principles  into 
his  personal  life.  The  teacher  who  is  healthy  and 
happy  with  Epicurus  nights  and  mornings,  holi- 
days and  vacations,  at  meal-time  and  between 
meals ;  who  faithfully  fortifies  his  soul  with  the 
Stoic  defenses  against  needless  regrets  and  super- 
fluous forebodings ;  who  now  and  then  ascends 
with  Plato  the  heights  from  which  he  sees  the 
letters  of  his  life  writ  large,  and  petty  annoyances 
reduced  to  their  true  dimensions  ;  who  applies  the 
Aristotelian  sense  of  proportion  to  the  distribu- 
tion of  his  energy,  so  that  the  full  force  of  it  is 
held  in  reserve  for  the  things  that  are  really  worth 
while,  and,  finally,  sees  in  the  lives  of  his  scholars 
the  supreme  object  for  which  all  these  other  ac- 
cumulations and  savings  have  been  made,  and  de- 
votes himself  j  oyf  ully  and  unreservedly  to  the  com- 
mon work  he  tries  to  do  with  them,  for  them,  and 
through  them  for  their  lasting  good, — this  teacher 
can  no  more  help  being  a  personal  success  as  a 
teacher  than  the  sunlight  and  rain  can  help  making 
the  earth  the  fruitful  and  beautiful  place  that  it  is. 


I 


OUTLINE 

I.  THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY  IN  SCHOOL 

THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  PUPIL 

1.  The  development  of  personality  as  the  teacher's 

task I 

2.  The  five  stages  in  our  educational  system  ...      2 

3.  The  different  forms  of  school  interests  .     *    .     .      3 

THE   PRIMARY  SCHOOL:    SUGGESTED    IMMEDIATE 
INTERESTS 

4.  Eager  interest  and  immediate  satisfaction  in  pri- 

mary teaching 4 

5.  The  strengthening  of  the  child's  will  through  in- 

terest    8 

6.  Discipline  by  compulsion  is  abnormal  but  neces- 

sary       10 

THE   GRAMMAR    SCHOOL:     ARTIFICIALLY   WEIGHTED 
INTERESTS 

7.  The  weighting  and  choosing  of  competitive  in- 

terests  14 

8.  The  function  of  artificial  encouragements  ...     1 5 

9.  The  special  value  of  the  manual  activities  ...     16 

10.  The  worth  of  special  and  frequent  promotions    .     17 

11.  The  teacher's  power  to  stimulate  joy  in  achieve- 

ment     19 

8s 


OUTLINE 

THE  HIGH  SCHOOL:   ELECTED  INDIVIDUAL  INTERESTS 

12.  The  need  for  discovering  the  youth^s  individual 

self 20 

13.  The  adolescent  is  readily  influenced  through  his 

aptitudes 23 

14.  The  power  of  a  devoted  and  purposeful  teacher .    24 

THE  COLLEGE  :    SOCIAL  INTERESTS 

1 5.  The  college  develops  a  social  will 25 

16.  The   curriculum   as    a    means :    (i)    literature, 

(2)  philosophy,  history,  and  political  science, 

(3)  the  physical  sciences 26 

17.  Student  life  as  a  resource 29 

18.  The  dangers  of  the  college  spirit 30 

19.  The  social  attitude  may  be  developed  below  the 

college 32 

20.  The  best  substitutes  for  college 36 

THE  UNIVERSITY:    PROFESSIONAL  INTERESTS 

21.  The  university  stimulates  reverence  for  truth      .     38 

22.  The  professional   spirit   demands   expert   com- 

mand of  a  subject 40 

23.  The  place  of  research  in  the  university  ....    40 

24.  The  misdirected  training  of  the  doctor  of  phi- 

losophy          .        .     .    41 

25.  Scholarship   and  presentation  in  the   teacher's 

profession 42 

FIVE  TESTS  OF  THE  TEACHER 

26.  The  overlapping  of  stages  and  interests      ...    43 

27.  The  five  tests  of  a  good  teacher 43 

86 


OUTLINE 

II.     THE    TEACHER'S    PHILOSOPHY    OUT  OF 

SCHOOL 

THE  PERSONALITY  OF  THE  TEACHER 

1.  Differences  in  personality  among  teachers  ...  49 

2.  The  parts  played  by  heredity  and  cultivation  .     .  51 

3.  Five  historic  types  of  personality 52 

4.  The  importance  of  typical  attitudes  in  the  teacher  53 

THE  EPICUREAN:    HAPPINESS 

5.  The  importance  of  happiness 54 

6.  Some  specific  Epicurean  duties 55 

7.  The  necessity  of  play  to  the  teacher 57 

8.  Rest  and  recreation 59 

THE  STOIC:    FORTITUDE 

9.  The  Stoic  keeps  his  mind  free  from  care    ...    60 

10.  Stoicism  is  the  doctrine  of  apperception  applied 

to  emotional  states 61 

11.  The  special  need  of  the  teacher  for  a  Stoical 

attitude 6$ 

THE  PLATONIC:    SERENITY 

12.  Other-worldliness  as  a  refuge  from  ills  ,    .    ,    ,  66 

13.  The  limitations  of  this  attitude 6y 

14.  Its  supplemental  worth  in  life 68 

THE  ARISTOTELIAN:    PROPORTION 

15.  The  goodness  of  things  is  a  matter  of  use  .     .     .     72 

16.  The  sense  of  proportion  an  essential  equipment 

in  teachers 72 

17.  The  necessity  for  selection  and  rejection  in  a 

busy  life 73 

87 


OUTLINE 

THE  CHRISTIAN:    DEVOTION 

1 8.  The  sharing  of  the  scholars*  problems    ....  77 

19.  Two  types  of  teachers yS 

20.  The  teacher  as  a  leader  of  children 80 

FIVE  PRINCIPLES  OF  PERSONALITY 

21.  The  absence  of  these  principles  makes  for  failure 

and  unhappiness 8r 

22.  These  five  principles  of  personality  are  a  surety  of 

success .    83 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .    S    .   A 


Editor,  Henry  Suzzallo,  Professor  of  The  Philosophy  of 
Education,  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University,  New- 
York. 

NUMBERS   READY  OR  IN   PREPARATION 

General  Educational  Theory 

EDUCATION.  An  essay  and  other  selections.  By  Ralph  Waldo 
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EDUCATION  FOR  EFFICIENCY,  and  The  New  Definition  of  the  Cul- 
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MORAL  PRINCIPLES  IN  EDUCATION.  By  John  Dewey,  Professor 
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OUR  NATIONAL  IDEALS  IN  EDUCATION.  By  Elmer  E. 
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THE  SCHOOL  AS  A  SOCIAL  INSTITUTION.  By  Henry  Suzzallo, 
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Administration  and  Supervision  of  Schools 

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SELT-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH.  By  George  Herbert  Palmer, 
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TYPES  OF  TEACHING.  By  Frederic  Ernest  Farrington,  Asso- 
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MANUAL  TRAINING  IN  THE  GRADES.  By  Edwin  R.  Snyder, 
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